Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BROMBOROUGH DOCK BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with an Amendment.

WEST YORKSHIRE GAS DISTRIBUTION BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the several Amendments to the Standing Orders relative to Private Business hereinafter stated in the Schedule be made."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

[For Schedule, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th July. 1946; c. 2-7.]

Further Consideration deferred till Tuesday, 8th October.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Widows' Pensions

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: asked the Minister of National Insurance what is the average time which elapses between the death of a man and the actual commencement of payment of widow's pension to his widow; and what number of cases have occurred during the first six months of this year in which payment did not begin to be made until three months after the husband's death.

Mr. George Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will indicate the average time that transpires between the date of receipt in his Department of an application for a widow's pension and the date upon which the pension award is made.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): The length of the period between the date of the husband's death and the issue of pension to the widow is in large measure dependent on the date on which the widow makes her application. The average time between receipt of a claim for a widow's pension and the issue of the pension has now been reduced to about five weeks as compared with seven weeks in the early part of this year. The information asked for in the second part of the Question by the hon. Members for Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) could not be obtained without a special scrutiny of claims which, for the reason indicated in the first part of my reply, I should not feel justified in undertaking.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are some cases where a very considerable period elapses, which causes great hardship, and will he take account of such cases and reduce the period as far as possible?

Mr. Griffiths: I am aware that this situation has not been satisfactory. We have been working on it with our staff at Blackpool but we are now in the process of moving that staff to Newcastle-011-Tyne. I am doing all I can to expedite the handling of these claims and when we are installed in our permanent home 1 am certain that we shall be able to reduce the period much further.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Is this not a result of trying to concentrate all activities under one Ministry, and do not the friendly societies give a much quicker and more efficient service?

Mr. Griffiths: In point of fact, the time taken has been considerably reduced since the concentration under one Ministry.

Unemployment Benefit

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Minister of National Insurance if, in view of the hardship on unemployed persons, ex-Service-men included, who have exhausted un-


employment standard benefit, he will put into operation, immediately the National Insurance Act becomes law, the new rates of unemployment benefits.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I would refer my hon. Friend to my recent reply to a similar question by the hon. Member for Blackburn of which I am sending her a copy.

Mrs. Braddock: Can my right hon. Friend give me any indication of the date upon which these people can expect to be relieved of the indignity of having to submit to a means test after being unemployed for six months?

Mr. Griffiths: I am sorry, but I cannot give a date now. The question is under consideration and is involved in the bringing into operation of the new Bill.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: My right hon. Friend will surely agree that he cannot give a date at all because the Bill provides in Clause 12 that for some unemployed persons there must be a means test?

Mr. Griffiths: As my hon. Friend knows perfectly well, the Bill contains provisions under Clause 62, and it is those provisions I have in mind.

Mrs. Braddock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these people who have been unemployed for so long have expected something much better of the Government in office at the moment than they are getting?

Mr. Griffiths: As my hon. Friend knows quite well, we have been working on this Bill for months past, but as I have stated I cannot give the date for which she has asked.

Mr. Attewell: Will my right hon. Friend circulate the report in HANSARD SO that we shall all know the answer?

Sir W. Darling: Does this mean that the Government are contemplating introducing legislation to abolish the means test?

Mr. Griffiths: I have just piloted through this House the National Insurance Bill, and we are now waiting for the time when that Bill becomes an Act of Parliament.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is it not a fact that it is the Tories who are in favour of the means test?

Mr. Attewell: Can I have an answer to my supplementary question as to whether the report is to be circulated in HANSARD?

Mr. Griffiths: I am not sure to which report my hon. Friend refers.

Mr. Attewell: I understood the Minister to say that he was sending a copy to the hon. Lady and I am asking whether he will kindly publish it in HANSARD.

Mr. Griffiths: The report is contained in a reply to a previous Parliamentary Question and has therefore already appeared in HANSARD.

Increased Old Age Pensions

Mr. Tom Smith: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will now make a statement about the arrangements for payment of increased old age pensions next October.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Arrangements have been made for payment of old age pensions at the increased rates to begin on the first pension pay day in October, on the assumption that the National Insurance Bill becomes law this week. Increased rates of pensions contributions will become payable by insured persons and their employers at the same time. A statement giving details of the main changes proposed in the present pensions scheme has been prepared as a White Paper which will, I hope, be available in the Vote Office after six o'clock this evening. An explanatory leaflet for existing and prospective pensioners will be available in post offices at the end of this month. This will explain to existing pensioners the qualifications for the increased pension and the arrangements for issue, and will give guidance to those who will qualify in the near future. Further leaflets giving detailed information about the increased contributions will be available at post offices and employment exchanges. Special notices of the changes in contributions will be sent to voluntary contributors.

Mr. Smith: May we take it that the leaflet will be written in simple language so that the old people will be able to understand it?

Mr. Griffiths: We are preparing a special leaflet which will be of the greatest possible benefit to the old people.

Mr. Monslow: Will my right hon. Friend indicate whether the supplemental allowance will be paid to the old people?

Mr. Griffiths: I am sorry, Sir, but I could not hear my hon. Friend.

Mr. Monslow: Will my right hon. Friend state whether the supplemental pension in excess of the proposed pension will be maintained in the interim period?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir.

Mr. George Wallace: Will the White Paper include the revised Regulations?

Mr. Griffiths: It will contain full information of the full scheme.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS (CORPORAL PUNISHMENT)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the total number of male and female delinquents now in remand homes and approved schools, respectively; whether the Regulations respecting corporal punishment in these institutions have been revised; what are the records of the infliction of this punishment for the last available period; in how many cases were six strokes or over administered; and what is the largest number of strokes administered and for what offences.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): As the answer to my hon. Friend's Question includes a number of figures, I will, with his permission, have it printed in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Sorensen: May we take it that consideration will be given to this matter in view of the promises made some months ago?

Mr. Ede: The matter is under consideration. I think my hon. Friend will gain enlightenment from my answer to his Question.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Will the Minister answer at any rate the second part of the Question, either in the affirmative or in the negative?

Mr. Ede: No revision of the Regulations has yet taken place.

Mr. Sorensen: When is there likely to be a revision?

Following is the answer:

On 30th June, 1946, there were 934 boys and 181 girls in remand homes and 9,101 boys and 2,102 girls in approved schools. The statutory rules governing the administration of corporal punishment in remand homes and approved schools were made in 1939 and 1933, respectively, and have not been revised since. During the quarter ended 30th June, 1946, corporal punishment was administered to 296 boys in remand homes and, apart from cases in which it was given for minor offences in the schoolroom, to 949 boys. and seven girls in approved schools. Of these, 599 boys each received six or more strokes of the cane, and two girls each received six strokes.

The largest number of strokes that it is permissible to administer is 12, which may, however, be given only to boys of the age of 15 years or over in approved schools, in exceptional cases and with the special approval of one of the school managers; the rules do not specify the offences for which this maximum penalty may be inflicted, but, during the quarter ended 30th June, 1946, four boys were so punished for absconding (two cases), gross misconduct (one case) and stealing (one case).

CHILD ADOPTION (REPORT)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Curtis Report on Child Adoption has now been received; and what action he proposes to take as a result of its recommendations.

Mr. Ede: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) on 25th July.

Sir T. Moore: In view of the fact that the committee has been sitting for about 18 months, is it not about time that we knew the intentions of the Government?

Mr. Ede: I gave an answer to that question only last week. The committee has spared no pains to expedite the report. I have been in correspondence with the chairman, and I expect to have the report in my hands about the time when the House resumes, if not earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS

Distressed Relatives Scheme

Mr. Henry Usborne: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why Mr. and Mrs. Mueller, Home Office reference No. M.35487, who have been waiting now for 15 months to join their children in England and who come under the Distressed Relatives Scheme, have been held up in Paris for five weeks; and when the passport control officer will give them their visa to proceed on their journey.

Mr. Ede: I understand that application was not made in Paris till a fortnight ago and that the applicants had no proper identity papers, but appeared to be Germans who had recently left Germany. It is the duty of the passport control officer to satisfy himself as to their identity and bona fides before granting them visas, and inquiries, I am informed, are being made for that purpose.

Mr. Usborne: Can my right hon. Friend say when the inquiries are likely to be completed?

Mr. Ede: We are proceeding with them as rapidly as we can. A fortnight is not very long, in the present disturbed state of the Continent.

Polish Soldier (Release)

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if it is proposed to release 705830 Corporal J. L. Franczak, Polish Forces, now stationed at the R.A.F. station, Coltishall, Norfolk, in order to take up farmwork in this country.

Mr. Ede: I am having inquiries made and will communicate with the hon. Member.

THAMES-SIDE STAIRS (DROWNED CHILDREN)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children under the age of 14 years have been drowned each year from 1920 to 1946 at each of the following stairs leading to the River Thames in Stepney: Alderman Stairs, Hermitage Stairs, Union Stairs, Wapping Old Stairs, King Henry Stairs, Wapping Dock, New Canal, King James Stairs and Pelican Stairs, respectively.

Mr. Ede: For the years 1920 to 1942 the police have no records from which the information asked for could be extracted without an undue expenditure of time and labour. For the period 1943 to 1946, there are records of one child under 14 having been drowned at Union Stairs in 1944, one at Pelican Stairs in 1945 and one at Alderman Stairs in 1946.

Mr. Piratin: While thanking the Minister for that information and regretting the absence of information for 20 years, may I ask whether he will say who is responsible for ensuring that these accidents do not occur and that children do not find such easy access to the river?

Mr. Ede: I do not think I could answer either question without notice, and very long notice.

FOOTBALL GROUNDS (SAFETY MEASURES)

Mr. John Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if in order to allay public anxiety during the coming football season, he will summon a conference with the Football Association and the Football League to arrange a consultation with the clubs with a view to agreeing safe maximum attendances.

Mr. Ede: The number of people that could safely be admitted depends so largely on the individual circumstances of the ground that I doubt whether it would be useful to attempt to deal with the question centrally. Pending further consideration of the machinery necessary for determining and enforcing maximum safety attendances, I am sure that the clubs will take every precaution open to them and, in this connection, will study the report on the Bolton disaster.

Mr. Lewis: Am I to understand that no steps will be taken by the Government before the next football season arrives in order to allay the anxiety of the football going public?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, my hon. Friend must not understand that.

EX-DETAINEES (TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons formerly detained under Regulation I8B are still


under restrictions to travel; under what authority such restrictions are imposed; how long such restrictions will remain in force; and for what reasons they have been imposed on the persons concerned.

Mr. Ede: There are five such persons from whom I have decided that, in the national interest, facilities to travel abroad ought to be withheld and to whom leave to embark would be refused under powers preserved by the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Act, 1946. The powers remain in force until the end of 1947 unless previously revoked.

Major Legge-Bourke: Have the persons concerned been told under what authority they are being restricted in travel, and have the full contents of any Order which affects this activity been given to them?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I could not say that in each of these cases, but if any of them asked under what authority I was acting they would be told.

Mr. Stokes: In the term "abroad" does the right hon. Gentleman include Eire? If that is so, is it not rather ridiculous that there should be this kind of restriction?

Mr. Ede: It certainly does include travel to Eire. It is very desirable that these five persons should be prevented from getting to that particular country.

Mr. Martin Lindsay: In view of the fact that the emergency is long since over, may I ask the Home Secretary whether he contemplates taking steps to have the powers annulled?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I do not. Out of a population of 46 million, only five persons are under this disability. I can assure the House, and my hon. Frend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), that it is with the greatest reluctance that I have decided that in these five cases it is necessary in the national interest to exercise this power.

INDICTABLE CASES (PUBLICITY)

Mr. Basil Nield: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what terms he has circularised justices on the exclusion of the Press from attending or reporting the proceedings before them where they are asked to commit for trial

at assizes or quarter sessions persons charged with criminal offences.

Mr. Ede: No circular to justices has been issued by my Department on this subject. I am advised that justices, when conducting a preliminary examination with a view to deciding whether the accused shall be committed for trial on indictment, are not required to sit in open court, but it is the general practice to do so. My predecessors in office have expressed the view, with which I agree, that justices should not sit in private save in exceptional cases such as those in which they are satisfied that the publicity given to these preliminary proceedings will prejudice the ends of justice. The importance of maintaining the policy of publicity for proceedings before them is, I am sure, well understood by justices.

Mr. Nield: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in a recent case, the justices excluded the Press from the proceedings on the ground that the jury might be prejudiced at the subsequent trial? If that is the correct ground, is it not, in effect, preventing the Press from reporting the proceedings?

Mr. Ede: Under Section 19 of the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, examining justices taking depositions are not required to sit in open court. In my view that power should be used only in the most exceptional circumstances. If the hon. and learned Member will send me particulars of the case he has in mind I will have it examined, to see whether it is desirable that any communication should be made to the justices concerned.

POLICE INVESTIGATIONS (PERSONAL CASE)

Brigadier Head: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why two members of the police force called on Mr. Charles Walter, 53, Fleet Street, E.C.4, to investigate the identity of Mr. Fred Karno; and if he will prevent such wasteful employment of public servants in future.

Mr. Ede: The visit to which I presume the hon. Member refers took place in June, 1945, and was not for the purpose suggested in the Question.

Brigadier Head: While thanking the Home Secretary for his most reassuring reply, may I ask him if he does not agree that the comparison by Mr. Walter of the Lord President to Mr. Fred Karno was somewhat unfair to the latter and that a well developed sense of humour gives a lot of pleasure to a lot of people?

Mr. Ede: Not nearly as much satisfaction as my right hon. Friend gives to everybody. This action was taken in June, 1945, when Sir Donald Somervell was Home Secretary.

BOARDING-OUT RULES (INFRINGEMENT)

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children who had been committed to the care of any authority, apart from the Kent County Council, for boarding out with foster parents, have been placed in remand homes during the last two years without application having been made previously to his Department for special arrangements to be made in accordance with the Children and Young Persons' Boarding-out Rules, 1933; what are the names of the authorities concerned; when were the respective children sent to remand homes; and for what periods were they respectively detained there.

Mr. Ede: When children are committed to the care of a local authority it is frequently necessary that they should remain temporarily in a remand home or other place of safety until a foster home is found or other special arrangement made. My consent is required if the temporary stay exceeds two months. I regret I cannot give the figures for the last two years, but since 1st January, 1946, six cases have come to notice of children outside Kent remaining in a remand home for more than two months without my consent. In all these cases, however, consent would have been given, since the children either were awaiting admission to a special school, or were mentally defective or under observation for mental defect, but this is no excuse for failing to ask for my consent.

Mr. Janner: In view of the serious nature of this matter, may I ask my right hon. Friend what the forms are that have to be filled in when a child is committed

to a remand home? Do those forms contain any particulars as to the authority for sending the child to the home?

Mr. Ede: If my hon. Friend wants information of that nature, he should put a Question on the Paper, but I will arrange for him to see copies of the forms in use.

POLICE AMALGAMATIONS (CHIEF CONSTABLES)

Major Mott-Radelyffe: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers who held the rank of chief constable before the Police Act was passed last April are now being offered re-employment with the rank of assistant chief constable, owing to the amalgamation of police forces which has taken place under this Act.

Mr. Ede: The provisions of Section 1 of the Police Act, 1946, abolishing non-county borough police forces, do not take effect until 1st April next, and until proposals have been submitted to me for an alteration of the authorised establishment, I am not in a position to say how many displaced chief constables will be offered appointment as assistant chief constables.

Major Mott-Radclyffe: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the proposed compensation to those former chief constables who will not be offered that rank? Surely they cannot all be offered that rank?

Mr. Ede: Any person who now holds office as a chief constable will continue to receive the same emoluments as he does at the moment. If he decides not to continue in the force, the Act which was passed earlier this year provides the basis for the compensation to be paid to him and reserves certain rights for his widow in the event of his dying before he reaches the age at which he would have been eligible for pension had he remained a chief constable.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Motor Tricycles

Mr. Sutcliffe: asked the Minister of Pensions if he intends to purchase the single-seater Larmar motor-car which is


now in production, instead of motor-propelled tricycles and bathchairs, for the use of disabled ex-servicemen.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Wilfred Paling): I am satisfied that the new model motor-propelled tricycles which have resulted from much research adequately meet the needs of the disabled pensioners for whom they are intended. I have, however, received representations to the effect that disabled pensioners who are motorcar owners and who are entitled to motor-propelled tricycles at State expense should be allowed to have their driving controls adapted to suit their disablement instead of being supplied with motor-propelled tricycles. I am glad to say that in future the reasonable cost of such adaptations will be paid by my Ministry, and that in these cases pensioners will be allowed also to have hand-propelled tricycles.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Will the Minister also watch developments in regard to this new car, which seems to have great possibilities, with a view to its adoption at a future date when there are more on the market? Will he also use his influence with the Chancellor to excuse these cars from Purchase Tax?

Mr. Paling: I will certainly watch the developments of the car.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the Minister satisfied about the price being paid for these cars? Is not there an increase compared with the prewar price?

Mr. Paling: The trouble is—a good car, a good price.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the Minister see that the price is reduced?

Artificial Limbs (Rubber)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that the quality of the rubber available for the fitting of artificial limbs at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, is still inferior to the best obtainable commercially; and if he will re-examine this matter in the light of the representations forwarded to him by the hon. Member for Maldon.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I can reassure the hon. Member that elastic webbing for use with artificial limbs issued by this Ministry is the best quality obtainable and that since March last pure rubber has been supplied.

Mr. Driberg: But has my right hon. Friend looked at the receipt from the Dunlop Rubber Co., sent to him by me, which shows that a legless ex-sergeant pilot has actually bought old parts from gas masks which are admittedly better than anything that could be provided at Roehampton?

Mr. Paling: That was probably before we were able to use the pure rubber.

Mr. Driberg: I am told it is still the same.

Mr. Paling: I am told it is not.

Plastic Surgery, Roehampton

Mr. Thomas Brooks: asked the Minister of Pensions if he will state the progress made in plastic surgery at the Roehampton Hospital, where many of our ex-Servicemen who were unrecognisable have had their faces and heads built up again from photographs by surgical and nursing skill; and if he will make a statement offering some appreciation of the services rendered by these doctors and nurses, also the research work in the laboratories at this hospital.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The Plastic Surgery and Jaw Unit at Roehampton Hospital was enlarged in 1939, to deal with Service cases and air raid casualties arising out of the 1939 World War. Considerable advances have been made, the most important of which are the insertion of special material, known as Tantalum, for the restoration of facial contours, the fixation of skin grafts by specialised methods, the making of skin flaps for amputation stumps, the treatment of chronic disease of bone and the development of a highly specialised physiotherapy service. Cooperation with the Orthopædic Unit and Dental Department has been developed on a large scale, and an excellent photographic Department capable of producing technical cine-films has been built up.
As regards research in the laboratories, I might make special mention of the investigations into the conditions influencing the healing of war wounds and the development of scar tissue, and also of the considerable amount of work in relation to the origin of tropical diseases, with particular reference to sprue. I am grateful to the hon. Member for the opportunity afforded to me to express appreciation of the invaluable work done by the


medical and dental officers, nurses and other staff in the care of the patients in this hospital.

Mr. Brooks: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this will give a good deal of pleasure to families in this country? May I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that hon. Members of this House and the general public ought to know that the days of miracles are not over? These people are doing a great work. We have still a great number of Florence Nightingales, and yet not a word of appreciation is given to these people behind the scenes.

Spinal Injuries

Mr. T. Brooks: asked the Minister of Pensions if he will state approximately the number of serious spinal cases that have been won back to almost normality at our military hospitals; the percentage of men who, by reason of this treatment have actually been able to take up employment; the number of men and women supplied with artificial limbs who have actually been able to take up employment; and if he is satisfied with the work on rehabilitation.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Unfortunately, it cannot be claimed that cases of serious spinal injury can be restored to a condition approaching normality in the sense of full mobility, but modern methods of treatment have very substantially reduced the mortality rate in these cases and have enabled the majority of the men to get about in self-propelled or motor-propelled chairs instead of being permanently confined to bed. Precise figures of the number who have been able to take up employment are not available but I estimate that, on the completion of treatment and, where necessary training, about 60 per cent. will be able to undertake remunerative employment.
Artificial limbs have been supplied in about 15,000 cases since 1939, of which 12,000 arc war-injured cases. Practically all of the persons concerned have been fit to take up remunerative employment or undergo training for employment. I am satisfied that all possible steps are taken by my Department and the other Departments concerned to restore the disabled man's mental and physical capacity in the shortest possible time and to the fullest possible extent so that he may

become once more a self-supporting member of the community.

Mr. Brooks: Is the Minister aware that we are going to watch this side of his work very closely? Appreciation of this could be shown by hon. Members of this House. A lot is said about putting a shilling a week on pension or allowances, but we should think about the poor people who want winning back to health and strength.

Dr. Morgan: Is it not a fact that a great deal of the necessary preliminary work in connection with these cases of injury to the spine and subsequent rehabilitation has not already been done in many of the Service and voluntary hospitals before they reach the Department?

Mr. Paling: Yes, I quite agree that we are not the only people concerned in this work.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the Minister provide additional facilities for these cases at places like the Lyme Green Settlement, near Macclesfield, where good work is being done but more facilities are required?

Mr. Paling: We are always trying to be as up to date and modern as we possibly can.

Personal Case

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Pensions why the widow of a naval rating killed in the war, of whose name he has been informed, has had the weekly allowance of us. for her son, who is still at school, stopped; and, as it has not been restored, in spite of letters to his Department, if he will take immediate steps to remove this hardship.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The widow was notified on 26th July that the allowance had been restored with effect from 15th June and would continue in payment to the end of the summer holidays by which time a decision will have been reached as regards the future arrangements for her son's education. I regret that owing to an error of judgment a temporary extension of the allowance was not made straight away for the period for which it was known that the boy would still be at school.

Mr. Lipson: To prevent cases of hardship like this recurring, would it be possible to send a notice three months before the normal school leaving age, so that the matter can be adjusted in time and a widow will not have to go without her allowance for her son in the intervening weeks, as has been done in this case?

Mr. Paling: I do not think that is possible, but I will look into it. Generally, these people do let us know well ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Forms

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Minister of Health the average number of forms it is necessary to fill in before the building of a house may be commenced.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): In the case of private builders the forms to be completed before obtaining permission to build number either three or five according to whether approval is necessary under the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act. Local authorities must obtain the approval of my Department and the Ministry of Town and Country Planning to the site and of my Department to the layout, house plans and tenders. No forms are in use for these purposes. In addition, both private builders and local authorities require certificates to assist them to obtain labour and certain materials. The number of these naturally varies according to the materials required.

Mr. Shepherd: Will the Minister tell the House the number of forms that were required in 1937 when many more houses were built?

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member's description is an absurd caricature of the facts.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Minister aware that the inability of three or four Ministries to agree is holding up the building of houses in the Orpington area?

Mr. Bevan: If the hon. Gentleman will reduce his abstract observations to concrete particulars, I will have them examined.

Sir W. Smithers: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Colonel Wheatley.

Later—

Sir W. Smithers: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I desire to ask your help and assistance. I asked a supplementary to Question 36 and I failed to catch your eye for a further supplementary. That has put me in an awkward position because an impression may go out which I cannot correct owing to the end of the Session. The Minister of Health gave a glib answer about abstract suggestions. I wish to put this right at once. The basis of my Question was the results of a deputation of 20 people waiting upon his Parliamentary Secretary——

Mr. Speaker: I cannot see how that comes in as a point of Order. The hon. Member is trying to explain why he put a supplementary. That is not a point of Order.

Sir W. Smithers: With great respect, Sir, I cannot put this right until 8th October.

Ex-Servicemen

Mr. David Renton: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Regular Forces who have been serving their country for many years, namely 21 years, in different parts of the world, are finding that local authorities will not take them on their waiting lists for houses, as they have not lived in the district during the past 10 years; and whether he will take steps to inform local authorities as to their duty towards these men.

Mr. Bevan: Housing authorities have already been asked in Circular 109/45, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy, to give ex-Servicemen every consideration in accordance with their relative needs, and in appropriate cases to waive any residential qualification they may have laid down. I have no reason to suppose that local authorities generally are failing to give effect to this circular. If the hon. Member has any particular cases in mind I should be glad to look into them.

Mr. Keeling: Would the right hon. Gentleman say what he would consider an appropriate case for a local authority to give a house to an ex-Serviceman who has had no connection with their district during the past 10 years?

Mr. Bevan: Yes, there are a number of examples. For instance, where an ex-Serviceman has found employment in the area, and is unable to carry on the employment unless he has residence there.

Council House (Ejection)

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Minister of Health under what powers a local authority can eject a tenant from a local authority house without giving any reason.

Mr. Bevan: A local authority's powers in this matter depend upon the terms of the tenancy. I have no reason to think that a local authority would end a tenancy without good reason, and if the hon. and gallant Member has such a case in mind perhaps he will send particulars to me or to the Secretary of State for Scotland, as may be appropriate.

Mr. Gammans: If a local authority have the power to eject a tenant from a council house without going to the county court, have they, therefore, powers which a private landlord does not possess?

Mr. Bevan: I have just answered that.

District Nurses

Mr. Medlicott: asked the Minister of Health if he will arrange to secure a measure of priority for the construction of housing accommodation for district nurses, especially in rural areas.

Mr. Bevan: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a circular which was sent to local authorities on this subject on 8th May.

Mr. Medlicott: Will the Minister do all he can to help in this matter, because many rural districts are in danger of losing good nurses owing to the difficulty of finding housing accommodation?

Mr. Bevan: As I stated in my reply of 8th May, I am doing my utmost to try and persuade local authorities to make these facilities available.

Hove

Mr. Teeling: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that Mr. Morris, of Princes Hotel, Hove, is storing furniture in a six-storey house, 41, Ventnor Villas, Hove; that six young families, who are being demobilised, have paid rent in advance to live in this house;

and what steps he proposes to take to make sure that no priority for furniture storage over living accommodation can be claimed.

Mr. Bevan: I understand that 41, Ventnor Villas has been used for the storage of furniture removed from the Princes Hotel which has been held under requisition by the military. The hotel has now been released and the furniture will be transferred to the hotel annexe as soon as it can be made available. There is no priority for furniture storage over living accommodation.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Male Nurses

Colonel Wheatley: asked the Minister of Health if, in view of the shortage of nurses, he will take steps to popularise the profession of male nurses and encourage, by generous financial assistance, those who are already undergoing training and those who are desirous of entering the profession, many of whom have had some training in the Services and are anxious to qualify as S.R.N.

Mr. Bevan: Yes, Sir, the wider employment of male nurses is most desirable, and I have already urged hospital authorities to make the fullest possible use of their services. Higher salaries have recently been announced for all grades of male nurse, including male student nurses and special allowances are paid to men who have been on war service.

Mr. Sorensen: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been an increase in recent years in the number of male nurses?

Mr. Bevan: Yes, Sir, there has been a substantial increase.

Diphtheria Immunisation

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Health whether he will see that in all future advertisements recommending the practice of immunisation, a statement is added stating that 19,040 children contracted diphtheria after submitting to this operation and of these 142 died, in the last five years, in order that the public may have the full facts concerning immunisation.

Mr. Bevan: No, Sir. Nor can I agree that this would be giving the public " the full facts." Obviously you cannot guarantee absolute immunity in every case; but the most striking facts are that the chance of a child's death from diphtheria is 26 times greater if it is not immunised and that deaths from diphtheria have been reduced to about a quarter of the prewar yearly average.

Mr. Freeman: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the public are entitled to know these facts, whether they are acceptable to others or not? Surely they may themselves judge whether they want their children to submit to this useless and objectionable operation?

Mr. Bevan: My hon. Friend should realise that the facts are available. They are published in the annual reports, and we have to make certain intelligent deductions from the known statistics.

Upholstery Fillings

Mr. Frederick Lee: asked the Minister of Health whether he is now able to report the findings of the committee which was set up to ensure the adequate cleansing of all fillings used in the manufacture of bedding, upholstery, toys, and other domestic articles; and whether it is his intention to introduce legislation to improve the present standards.

Mr. Bevan: The Committee's Report was presented to both Houses on 23rd July and has been published as Command Paper No. 6S66. The Report is at present under consideration.

Mr. Lee: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since putting down this Question, I have seen the Report, and I would like to congratulate the Committee on a very fine Report? As the Report is a condemnation of the present position, will my right hon. Friend consider the introduction of legislation at a very early date?

Mr. Bevan: I have not yet had an opportunity of digesting the Report, which I agree is an admirable and detailed piece of work. When I have made up my mind what to do, I shall certainly inform the House.

Streptomycin

Mr. T. J. Brooks: asked the Minister of Health in view of the serious incidence of new cases of tuberculosis and the high

death rate associated with this disease, what steps are being taken to import supplies of the drug streptomycin from the U.S.A.; and what efforts are being made for its manufacture in this country.

Mr. Bevan: I am informed that American production of streptomycin is too small to permit export to this country. Arrangements are being made with the Ministry of Supply and the Medical Research Council to set on foot the manufacture in Great Britain of sufficient streptomycin for adequate clinical trials.

Mr. Brooks: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the person who inspired this Question is already suffering in a sanatorium, and is very anxious to get this treatment?

Mr. Bevan: I am very anxious that before this drug is adopted it shall be clinically tried out, and that all that is claimed for it shall be established. That is now being done.

Dr. Morgan: Will the Minister see that the testing of this excellent drug is done in a more widespread manner than is usually evailable within the offices of the Medical Research Council?

Mr. Bevan: I think that the Medical Research Council are prefectly competent to carry out these trials.

Dr. Morgan: Are they?

Mr. Bevan: I think they are. They have established their reputation. A considerable clinical test is being carried out, and it is surely rather premature to describe a drug as excellent before it has been clinically tested.

Dr. Morgan: It has been tested in America.

Dr. Stephen Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the American manufacturing firm concerned has revealed the method of manufacture, or have we to work that out ourselves?

Mr. Bevan: I cannot answer that at the moment. If my hon. Friend will put down a question, I will see what I can do to answer it.

LOCAL AUTHORITY MEMBERS' EXPENSES (COMMITTEE)

Mr. Gooch: asked the Minister of Health if he is now able to announce the terms of reference and the membership of the committee which he proposes to


appoint to consider the question of reimbursement for loss of time and travelling expenses of public representatives on local government bodies.

Mr. Bevan: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Ayles) on 23rd July, of which I am sending him a copy.

EX-MINISTERS' WRITINGS (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

Mr. Eden: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about the policy of His Majesty's Government towards the publication by former Ministers and other persons who have held office under the Crown of books and other writings about their experiences during the war.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir. It has long been recognised that all persons who have held office under the Crown are under an obligation to consult the Government of the day or the heads of the Departments affected in regard to the publication of any unpublished information which they have obtained by virtue of their official position and to obtain formal permission in any doubtful case.
Former Ministers who wish to make use of such information should apply to the Secretary of the Cabinet, who will consult any Department concerned and submit the matter to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Other persons who have held office under the Crown, including former members of the Foreign, Colonial and Home Civil Services and the Fighting Services, should apply to the head of their former Department or to the Board of Admiralty, Army Council, or Air Council as the case may be.
In dealing with any such applications His Majesty's Government will distinguish between the position of a former Minister, who has been responsible to Parliament and subject to public criticism, and other former Crown servants, who have not had a Minister's responsibilities. Further they will bear in mind the fact that during the war much information that would ordinarily have been published had to be

kept secret for reasons of military security; they will therefore be disposed to allow the greatest practicable freedom in the use of official information about the events of the war period and defence themes in the years immediately preceding the war, subject to no matter being disclosed which would be clearly contrary to the public interest, or would impair the confidential relationships which subsist between Ministers, or between Ministers and their advisers.

Mr. Gammans: Could the right hon. Gentleman say under what authority the Government take the power to censor people's books in this way?

Mr. Morrison: The principle is a well established constitutional custom which has existed under many Governments. Indeed, the Official Secrets Act has a very potent relationship.

Mr. Stokes: Would my right hon. Friend consider whether it would not be for the benefit of posterity if all Ministers were forced to publish all the truth for the benefit of the future?

Mr. Nally: Can we take it from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that every facility will be given to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson), to tell the full and fascinating story of how, as Minister of Agriculture, he also became Britain's foremost farmer?

Mr. Speaker: That is another question.

MARRIED WOMEN'S NATIONALITY (EMPIRE AGREEMENT)

Major Symonds: asked the Prime Minister if the exchange of views between His Majesty's Government and the governments of the Dominions on the question of the nationality of married women has yet been completed; and if he has any statement to make.

Mr. H. Morrison: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend would await the statement which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Honk; Department proposes to make at the end of Questions.

At the end of Questions—

Mr. Ede: I am glad to inform the House that agreement has now been reached between the United Kingdom Government


and the Governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as to the principles on which legislation governing the nationality of married women should be based.
The principles accepted by the five Governments are that the law should provide in effect that a British woman on marriage to a foreigner, whether she does or does not acquire his nationality under the law of his country, shall not lose her British nationality unless she takes some active step to renounce it; and that a foreign woman on marriage to a British subject shall not automatically acquire British nationality, but shall have the right to apply for it, subject to the exercise by the Minister concerned of a discretion as to the grant or refusal of the application.
It is contemplated that a conference of experts should be convened later this year to examine various questions affecting nationality law in the several countries of the Commonwealth. This conference will afford an opportunity of considering the detailed provisions required for effecting the changes now agreed upon in the law relating to the nationality of married women,

Captain Sir Peter Macdonald: Will the Home Secretary say whether the same rules will apply in the Colonial Empire?

Mr. Ede: We are taking into consideration what repercussions there will be in this matter in the Colonial Empire if we are in a position to promote legislation together with the Dominions.

Major Symonds: With regard to those alien women who acquired British nationality by marriage to British subjects, will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the desirability of imposing exactly the same kind of restrictions on these women married to British subjects as are required for those single women and alien men when they seek British nationality?

Mr. Ede: Of course, these matters are very complicated, and it is exceptionally difficult to give, in answer to a supplementary question, an answer with sufficiently guarded qualifications to make it desirable to continue it on this basis. We are exceedingly anxious that the general principle which I have enunciated in the statement I have made shall

become effective, but there will be a very large number of detailed complications to which we shall have to have regard in framing the legislation and in applying it.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Is it clear that this House will have an opportunity of debating this question? There are some of us who feel most strongly on the last part of the principles enunciated, that is to say, that for the first time a British subject will not be free to confer British nationality on an alien by marriage.

Mr. Ede: In this matter, I think we arc bound to proceed on the doctrine of the equality of the sexes, which, I thought, had by this time been generally accepted.

Mr. Stanley: Are we going to get an opportunity to discuss it? I do not want that silly sort of observation.

Mr. Ede: I have endeavoured to give a perfectly courteous answer to the question that was put by the right hon. Gentleman. Certainly, this matter cannot be dealt with except by legislation. I made that clear in my original statement, and I think the right hon. Gentleman might have done me the honour of listening to what I said.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: In view of the considerable number of British women married to members of the Allied Forces during the war, will the right hon. Gentleman examine the position to see if it is at all possible to give the new arrangements retrospective effect from the beginning of the war?

Mr. Ede: That, again, is a matter we shall have to discuss in conjunction with the Governments of four self-governing Dominions. We are, at the moment, discussing the questions involved. The present position is that the law regarding the acquisition of British nationality on marriage differs in the self-governing parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations. We desire to bring it under one system, and, quite clearly, it would be wrong for me to make a definite promise here today which might be objected to by one or other of the Dominion Governments.

Mr. Pickthorn: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, and of the difficulty of this House taking a free decision on Bills which have been, in substance, already agreed with His


Majesty's other Governments, will the Government consider, in this case, the old fashioned but not obsolete procedure of beginning by Resolution?

Mr. Ede: That is a question which should be addressed to the Leader of the House.

Mr. Churchill: I will now address it to the Leader of the House. Deferring to the request of the Home Secretary, I should like to ask the Leader of the House the question which he suggested should be directed to him.

Mr. H. Morrison: I gather that the question is whether the House will have an opportunity of having a Debate by Motion. It would, I think, be a somewhat unusual course, because there would have to be legislation and a Bill in due course. Nevertheless, I would be willing to consider representations on the point.

Mr. Churchill: Anyhow, in the negotiations with the Dominions, will the Government make it perfectly clear that the full discretion of the House of Commons over their affairs is not prejudiced thereby?

Mr. Ede: Certainly, and, of course, I shall have to make a similar concession during the discussions to each of the Dominions represented.

Sir Ronald Ross: May I ask what is the position in regard to Eire, which, I understand, is still considered to be a Dominion, and the obvious desirability of all parts of the British Commonwealth following' the same course in this very important matter?

Mr. Ede: The position of Eire is one of very great difficulty in this matter. It will have been observed, I am quite sure, by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) that the Eire Government were not among those who had been invited to the Conference that we are holding, but the position of Eire in this matter does give some considerable difficulty at the moment, and I do not think it would be helpful if, at this stage, they were invited to come in.

Sir T. Moore: In view of the fact that a number of our girls have been married to men from Newfoundland in this war,

will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that Dominion is included in that arrangement?

Mr. Ede: It has not been included so far.

Mr. Benn Levy: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if this proposal relates only to future marriages or to existing marriages?

Mr. Ede: That, again, is a matter which will have to be the subject of consideration at the Conference. What I desire, and what I imagine every hon. Member of the House will desire, is that, as far as possible, there should be one system for each of the self-governing parts of the British Commonwealth.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Elderly Pacifists (Journalism and Education)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster why elderly Germans who hold pacifist and anti-militant opinions, many of whom have spent several years in concentration camps, are not given facilities for educational and journalistic work; and why Germans holding those convictions are considered by British authorities in Germany to be questionable persons who should not be encouraged.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): I am not aware of any discrimination against such Germans in the British zone, but if my hon. Friend can give me particulars of any instances where facilities have been denied, I will have inquiries made.

Mr. Sorensen: May I take it, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will take action to assist these people, whose integrity is unquestioned and whose sincerity has been well guaranteed by experience, to do what they can to influence their German compatriots in the same direction as the views they hold themselves?

Mr. Hynd: In the matter of educational and journalistic work, the question would not be whether they held or did not hold pacifist views, but what their qualifications were for that particular class of work.

Major Lloyd: Is it not possible that the Germans might think of these people in the same way as the vast majority of the people of this country do?

Death Sentence

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether his attention has been called to the sentence of death, passed on a 23-year-old German youth by a military court at Hanover for displaying a portrait of Hitler on 1st May; and whether he will have this sentence quashed.

Mr. J. Hynd: All death sentences passed by Military Government courts are reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief. As this case is still under review, it would not be proper for me to make any comments at present.

Mr. Stokes: Is my hon. Friend aware that, as stated in full in the "Manchester Guardian" on 17th July, this was the reason for the sentence of death? What would happen to a man who exposed a photograph like this photograph I hold in my hand, showing Stalin shaking hands with Ribbentrop? Would that man be condemned to death also?

Mr. Hynd: I must point out that the reason given in the Question for the sentence is by no means the complete story, but I cannot make any further comment, obviously, as the case is being reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Will the hon. Member give an assurance that this death sentence will not be carried out until he himself has considered it?

Mr. Hynd: I am advised that I have no powers to overrule any decision the Commander takes, although I have no doubt that the fact that the Question has been raised here will be brought to the notice of the Commander-in-Chief.

Mr. Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman convey to the Commander-in-Chief that many hon. Members in many quarters of the House are very much concerned about this matter?

Mr. S. Silverman: Are we to understand from my hon. Friend's last answer that people can be sentenced to death by British courts, or British authorities, without anybody in this House being responsible to the House?

Mr. Hynd: It must be understood, surely, that this is an occupied country, that a legal system has been laid down, that a system of appeals has been arranged, and that the highest appeal within the law is to the Commander-in-Chief. I am rather surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) suggesting that there should be a departure from the tradition that the courts, once the law has been established, should not be subject to any pressure from this House.

Mr. Stokes: rose—

Mr. Speaker: We are getting a long way from the original Question.

Mr. Stokes: On a point of Order. In case this is allowed to go by default, I wish to give notice that, as the Commander-in-Chief is clearly responsible to the Secretary of State for War, to whom I addressed the Question, I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Internment Camps (Young Persons)

Mr. Paget: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many persons under 16, 17 and 18 years of age, respectively, have been confined in internment camps in Germany; and for what periods.

Mr. J. Hynd: As my hon. Friend will appreciate, I have not been able to obtain detailed figures in the time available. The only persons under 18 years of age now held under arrest, are the few against whom specific war crime charges are being preferred. All others have been progressively screened, and released.

Mr. Paget: Will the Minister say what steps he is taking to investigate the very specific charges brought by the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) and myself during the Debate?

Mr. Hynd: Certainly, all matters raised in the course of the Debate will be thoroughly investigated where it is considered there is any case for investigation. But in regard to the specific charges raised by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) in regard to the administration of certain camps, I gather that these have already been thoroughly investigated by the Secretary of State for War, and a report has already been given


to the House. The conditions referred to by my hon. Friend in the Debate were conditions which operated before the camps, which are now closed, came under my jurisdiction.

Hunger Oedema (Internment Camps)

Mr. Paget: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many cases of hunger oedema have occurred amongst internees in British internment camps in Germany.

Mr. J. Hynd: No statistics exist, or can be obtained, of the number of cases of hunger œdema which have occurred in these camps. The number of internees at present in hospital or sick bay suffering from malnutrition, is 1,257. This figure is steadily decreasing.

Mr. Paget: Is it not a fact that very large numbers in these camps have suffered from hunger œdema, and that they are continuing to suffer, and there are continually new cases?

Mr. Hynd: It is a fact that there have been large numbers in these camps who have shown signs of malnutrition, following the cut in rations in March. Precisely because of that fact, specially increased rations were given to the inmates of these camps and the numbers are rapidly decreasing. In fact, the cases have been halved in the last two months.

DISPLACED PERSONS, AUSTRIA (SENTENCES)

Dr. Segal: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster why sentences of seven months' imprisonment were passed on two members of the U.N.R.R.A. D.P. camp at Admont, Steirmark, Austria, for complaining of their accommodation while waiting at Klagenfurt to give evidence at a murder trial; and when these sentences are likely to be revised.

Mr. J. Hynd: These persons were sentenced, not for complaining of their accommodation, but for leaving their quarters at Klagenfurt before the trial and returning to Admont, over 100 miles away, in contravention of a Military Government ordinance limiting the movements of D.Ps. to a radius of 10 kilo-

metres of their quarters. Their cases are under review, and a decision can be expected shortly.

Dr. Segal: Is the Minister aware that all these displaced persons—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]—left their quarters at Klagenfurt—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]—for an address which was perfectly well known, and were always available in case the trial took place at short notice, that five British officers who were asked their advice on this case said that the sentences were somewhat harsh —[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]— and would he see that the revision of these sentences will be carried out as speedily as possible?

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member please speak up? I have not heard a single word.

Mr. Hynd: As I have stated in the answer, the cases are under review, and no doubt all the factors will be taken into consideration. But I must point out that they did break the ordinance, and to that extent were breaking the law applying to such cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Motorcars (Disabled Persons)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will exempt from Purchase Tax motorcars purchased by 100 per cent. disabled men, which are used by them for the same purposes as invalid chairs, if necessary, subject to suitable guarantees against resale.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): No, Sir. Liability to Purchase Tax must depend on the character of the article, and not on the circumstances of the purchaser.

Mr. Sorensen: Will my right hon. Friend consider at a suitable opportunity exemptions from Purchase Tax for all invalid carriages?

Mr. Dalton: Invalid carriages are all exempt from tax. The question is about motorcars. The Purchase Tax is levied at the wholesale stage, and when levied, no one knows who is going to use the cars. It is an administrative impossibility to distinguish as to their use.

Mr. Driberg: If a car is specially fitted up, with special gears and so on, so that no one else could use it, would that not meet the case?

Mr. Dalton: No, it has all been looked at, and it is perfectly impracticable from an administrative point of view.

Higher Incomes (Check Relaxation)

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it has been possible to take further steps to relieve the pressure of work in tax offices beyond those previously announced.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I have approved the extension to higher ranges of income of the relaxation for the years 1944–5 and 1945–6 of the annual check-up which I announced on 28th May. (Broadly speaking, dispensation from check-up will now extend up to and include earnings in the £500–600 range. This relaxation will further reduce the pressure of work in the tax offices, and will enable arrears to be overtaken more quickly.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Why does the right hon. Gentleman call a check a "checkup"?

Mr. Dalton: This was explained on 28th May in HANSARD.

Government Surplus Stores (Disposal)

Mr. John Freeman: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any statement to make about the organisation for the disposal of surplus stores.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. General Sir Wilfrid Lindsell, who, as the House knows, has been acting on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, as the Government's executive officer for the disposal of surplus stores, is being released from his duties, at his own request. I wish to take this opportunity of thanking him, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, for having done a very good job. Since over 80 per cent. of the total disposals now fall within the field of the Ministry of Supply, the co-ordinating responsibility hitherto borne by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is

being transferred to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply.

Mr. Driberg: Does that include disposal of Army huts—

Mr. Dalton: It includes the disposal of Army huts.

Mr. Driberg: —because if so, it is not a very good job.

Mr. Hoy: Will my right hon. Friend say if Questions regarding the disposal of these surplus stores should be directed to the Minister of Supply, or will be answered by a different Department?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, it will be convenient if in future my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply takes all Questions on disposal.

British Prisoners of War (Claims)

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, as a result of the representations made to him by the Service Departments, he is now prepared to make a statement on the refund of moneys to officers and other ranks of sums expended in prison camps for escapist and other Service activities.

Mr. Dalton: This matter is still under consideration.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this matter was referred to the Treasury at least as early as February, and probably earlier? Is it not time the Government made up their minds on such questions as, for example, that of the hardships of a great number of people, particularly the dependants of the 50 officers of Stalag Luft III who have suffered great hardship? Is it not time that the Government decided that money spent on intelligence and escapist activities should now be refunded to dependants of Servicemen?

Mr. Dalton: I am very sympathetic to the initial claim that was made in the matter, but, as frequently happens, when one shows a disposition to meet an initial claim, other claims are raised from other quarters, and it is this that is delaying us now.

Fur Skins (Import)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a considerable quantity of dollar exchange


is being expended on importing furs; and whether, in view of the scarcity of dollars, he will restrict the use of such dollars to buying commodities of which we have a greater need.

Mr. Dalton: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply of 5th March to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Mr. Peter Freeman).

Mr. Swingler: Is the Chancellor aware that he has justified this policy by reference to the possible export trade in fur clothing, but that, in fact, our exports of fur clothing in the past and now do not amount to more than one-hundredth of the value of fur imports, and how can he justify this policy, when we are so short of dollars to buy necessities like petrol and farm tractors?

Mr. Dalton: The hope is that the fur trade will, in a reasonable time, yield a substantial profit on foreign exchange. If it does not, I will stop it

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Chancellor aware that the greater the importation of furs, the less of a luxury they will be, and the more we shall resemble the fur coated Russian proletariat?

Mortgages (Stamps)

Mr. Marlowe: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Stamp Office is refusing to stamp mortgages unless furnished with a certificate of Treasury consent or a certificate of exemption; and if he will give instructions for this practice to cease in view of the fact that, under paragraph 4 of Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations, 1939, a security is not invalidated by reason of Treasury consent not having been given or Treasury conditions not complied with.

Mr. Dalton: I have been asked to reply. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue have been authorised by the Treasury under Regulation 8 to obtain any information required to secure compliance with Regulation 6.

Mr. Marlowe: Will the Chancellor explain under what authority the clerks in the Stamp Office refused to stamp documents which are legally in order, and will he give instructions that that is now to stop, because documents that are valid are entitled to be stamped?

Mr. Dalton: The authority is the Defence (Finance) Regulations but very shortly these will be replaced by the Schedule to the Borrowing Act, which has recently become law. The reason for this practice is to prevent evasion of the Capital Issues Control. We have full legal authority, first under the Defence (Finance) Regulations, and now under the Borrowing Act, which His Majesty has approved.

IDENTITY CARDS

Major Lloyd: asked the Minister of Health whether the production of an identity card can still be demanded by a member of His Majesty's Armed Forces in uniform, on duty, as well as by a police officer in uniform.

Mr. Bevan: Yes, Sir, but only if he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person is a deserter from His Majesty's Forces or is absent therefrom without leave, or is an escaped prisoner of war.

Major Lloyd: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that that is entirely understood throughout His Majesty's Forces, and by the civilian population?

Mr. Bevan: This has been referred to on many occasions. I do not like the continuation of identity cards, and I think that is universal. When it becomes possible to end them I shall do so, but I will do my best to see that this information is made known.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Village Schools, Totnes

Brigadier Rayner: asked the Minister of Education whether she has approved of the scheme of the Devon County local education authorities, under which it is proposed to close a number of village schools in the Totnes area, as this decision will subject children of five years of age to a long daily omnibus journey; and if she will reconsider this matter.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Hardman): I have not received the proposals to which I understand the hon. and gallant Member refers. Suggestions for the closure of a number of schools in the Totnes area were made in a report published in June,


1945, as a basis for discussion in preparing the development plan for the area. I understand that the Devon authority themselves are still surveying the schools in question, but they have not yet formulated proposals affecting them for inclusion in the development plan.

Brigadier Rayner: Is the Minister aware that a good many mothers object to their small children having a long journey every day? Is he also aware that in the past village schools have achieved a larger proportion of scholarship successes than the town ones; and that L.C.C. evacuees during the war proved to be about a year behind their village contemporaries? Will the Minister reconsider his policy in regard to the closing of village schools?

Mr. Hardman: My right hon. Friend and myself have every sympathy with the village schools. All we want to do is to reorganise them and bring them up to date. As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the fact that managers of voluntary schools can appeal against any closure proposal that may be made.

Corporal Punishment

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Education how many cases of the infliction of corporal punishment in the schools under her jurisdiction have been brought to her notice during the six months ended 30th June, 1946.

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Education how many cases of corporal punishment were inflicted on boys and girls, separately, last year; and whether she has any evidence that, in schools where this practice has been abolished, there has been any deterioration of discipline.

Mr. Hardman: Cases of corporal punishment are not brought to the notice of my right hon. Friend except on a complaint by the parent. According to our records, which are not necessarily complete, three cases have been so reported in the past six months I have not sufficient evidence at my disposal to justify a general conclusion about the effect on discipline.

Sir T. Moore: In view of that reply, and the reply made by the right hon. Lady the other day, could the Parlia-

mentary Secretary say whether there is any connection between this decrease in corporal punishment and the increase in juvenile delinquency?

Mr. Freeman: Under the disciplinary code of the schools, can children be subjected to corporal punishment in front of the children, and does my hon. Friend approve or disapprove of that process?

Mr. Hardman: Quite frankly I feel that the use of corporal punishment shows a certain weakness in the teacher. As a teacher of experience I never wanted to inflict corporal punishment, except perhaps sometimes on Members on the benches opposite.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Does the hon. Member think the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been the same man had he not been subject to corporal punishment in his youth?

Teachers' Interchange (American Visit)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Minister of Education what financial assistance is being given to the teachers who are spending a year in the U.S.A., in view of the increasing cost of living there and the fact that they will have to pay British Income Tax during this period.

Mr. Hardman: I have nothing to add to the answer given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member on the 18th July.

Mr. Gammans: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that it is quite useless to send these teachers to the United States expecting them to pay British Income Tax in the meanwhile and to live over there decently and adequately in view of the high cost of living in America today?

Mr. Hardman: I have nothing to add to the answer already given.

B.B.C. (REGIONAL AMALGAMATION)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is aware that by merging the Midland with the West Regional programmes of the B.B.C. many listeners in Monmouthshire would be out of range; and, in view of the fact that there is a large proportion of


English-speaking people in this area, if he will arrange a better alternative in addition to the Welsh Regional programme.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): My hon. Friend seems to be under some misapprehension. The merging of the B.B.C.'s West and Midland Regions would not adversely affect listeners in Monmouthshire, who should be able to receive the new programme on a wavelength of 216.8 metres as satisfactorily as they now receive the West of England programme on a wavelength of 203.5 metres. They will in addition be able to receive the Welsh programme and the Light programme as at present.

NEWSPAPER PRESS (DEBATE)

Mr. Churchill: May I ask the Leader of the House before we separate a Question of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether he proposes to give time for an early Debate dealing with the Press of this country, and before any inquiry or commission is set up, in view of the statements which have been made by Members of the Government on this subject?

Mr. H. Morrison: I note the right hon. Gentleman's request and should be prepared to consider, through the usual channels, arrangements for a Debate in the autumn, if possible, should the Government decide to set up an inquiry.

Mr. Churchill: In the meanwhile, before the Debate takes place, will the acting Prime Minister—or the Leader of the House, or the Lord President—will he in all these capacities endeavour to restrain the Attorney-General from prejudicing the issue by all kinds of disordered public statements before any question of an inquiry is decided?

Mr. Morrison: This is rather a curious request. It appears to combine a demand for the freedom of the Press together with a demand for the suppression of the Attorney-General. I am bound to say that, as a friend of the cause of freedom in both and all respects.

Mr. Churchill: Are there not very well known conventions for regulating the conduct of the Law Officers of the Crown in regard to matters which may conceivably assume a judicial aspect; and

what has that got to do with the ordinary freedom of discussion which, up to the present, the right hon. Gentleman has allowed us to enjoy in this country?

Mr. Morrison: I am very much obliged for that last admission. I can only say that my recollection is that many Law Officers, including a whole series of Tory Law Officers, have made the most flaming political speeches on all sorts of subjects from time to time and, on the whole, I think my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General is a model of good conduct.

Mr. Churchill: It is, no doubt, true that other Governments, other Labour Governments before this, have hired a pert lawyer to insult their political opponents but without considerable—

Mr. Bowles: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Was the hon. Gentleman rising to a point of Order?

Mr. Bowles: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Speaker: From the noise I thought that was so.

Mr. Bowles: Has this discussion anything to do with Business before the Recess or after the Recess?

Mr. Speaker: I was wondering about that, but I thought we were somehow in a holiday mood.

Mr. Churchill: With the greatest respect to you, Sir, I was of course endeavouring to follow your wishes as to how business should be conducted and had not realised the assistance which the hon. Gentleman wished to offer you in your task. May I complete what I was about to say by saying that if there is to be a serious inquiry, a Royal Commission, into the conduct and character of the British Press, surely it would be desirable that there should be a cessation to these very provocative and controversial statements by the Law Officers of the Crown who, after all, have to advise the Government on many of the very important legal issues which arise?

Mr. Driberg: Will my right hon. Friend be extremely careful, even in a phrase in a supplementary answer, not to lend any countenance to the suggestion that what the Opposition are trying to defend is the


freedom of the Press instead of freedom for a few millionaire proprietors to distort the news?

Mr. Churchill: They were very good friends of yours.

Mr. Eden: Beaverbrook's man.

Mr. M. Lindsay: Is the Lord President aware that on 30th April the Prime Minister declined to set up such an inquiry? May I ask him what new factors have arisen since then to cause the Government to reconsider this matter other than, of course, the slump in the popularity of the Government?

Mr. Driberg: The campaign of lies about bread rationing.

Mr. Morrison: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I think we had better get on. We are getting rather personal now.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that news from India has taken a grave turn. Are we going to separate for eight weeks without any indication on the part of the Government that they are aware of the gravity of the situation? Are we not to have a statement from the Government?

Mr. Morrison: We had a Debate quite recently. I agree that the situation is difficult, but I do not think we could improve the situation either by the Government making a statement or us having a discussion about it.

SERVICES PERSONNEL (MARRIAGE BAN REMOVAL)

Mr. Speaker: In calling the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, I should say that this statement should have been made to synchronise with the statement made in another place yesterday, and that it is my fault, as I forgot to call the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, that it is being made today.

Mr. Lawson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That gets me out of a difficulty. With the permission of the House I should like to make a short statement about the ban on marriages between British Servicemen and women of ex-enemy countries. I had arranged with the Speaker to make the statement yesterday, but, unfortunately,

when the time came, I did not manage to catch his eye.
After careful consideration the Government have decided to relax the ban at present in force on marriages between British Servicemen, and women of ex-enemy countries, other than Japanese. Local military commanders will be given authority to permit such marriages in cases where there is no security or other objection.

Mr. Churchill: May I ask on what grounds the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made makes an exception in the case of the Japanese? Must we not, in this matter, be very careful not to draw distinctions between the status of East and West?

Mr. Lawson: For the simple reason, I may tell the right hon. Gentleman, that the matter has not arisen. We have had strong representations from other parts of Europe, but we have had none in this particular instance.

Mr. Churchill: But, supposing, at any moment, the right hon. Gentleman was informed that some British soldier wished to marry a Japanese, are we to understand that he would make a great gulf of principle between that permission and the decision he has already given?

Mr. Lawson: No, Sir. If the matter did arise and representations were made, the matter would receive consideration on its merits.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether his statement means that the military commander will only have power to prevent such marriages if the question of security comes in, and that it will not be left to him arbitrarily to decide otherwise?

Mr. Lawson: Yes, Sir. The question of security of course, is excepted, but it always has been a rule, and, as a matter of fact, it is a regulation, that, in any case, permission must be asked in respect of marriage.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether special arrangements will be made for those men of B.A.O.R. who were refused permission to marry while serving in Germany, and who have since returned to England, leaving their fiancées in Germany, to be


married? I have sent the right hon. Gentleman particulars of several such cases.

Mr. Lawson: Such women can come in at the present time.

Mr. Benn Levy: Will my right Hon. Friend qualify the answer he gave to the supplementary question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) and explain whether the discretion of the commanding officer is alsolute, or whether there is any appeal from it?

Mr. Lawson: As I told the House, there is a Regulation to the effect that permission must be asked. It is accepted that the officer stands in the relationship of a welfare officer to the man and gives him advice.

Mr. Logan: I take it that no matter what the Government or an official may say, the bond of marriage still holds good?

Mr. Paget: Will the Minister say that the discretion to grant permission to marry which is vested in the General Officer Commanding will be the same formality as that in connection with a marriage to an Englishwoman, save where security reasons arise? Secondly, will he say whether permits to leave the country will be granted to the German fiancees of English soldiers who have come back? At present, they can be granted visas by the military authorities, but not exit permits.

Mr. Logan: Can I have an answer to my question?

Mr. Lawson: As I understand the first part of the question, the answer is in the affirmative. The last point, of course, is a matter for the military.

Mr. Logan: May I have an answer, Mr. Speaker, to my question?

Mr. Lawson: I think it would be of interest to the hon. Gentleman, and to the House generally, to know that, although this ban has operated for 12 months, there have been occasional marriages. I would not pose as a legal authority on this matter, but I understand, in answer to the question asked by the hon. Gentleman, that such marriages are legal.

FOOD SUPPLIES (ANGLO-DANISH AGREEMENT)

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): An agreement has been reached with the Danish Government covering the supply by Denmark of butter, bacon and eggs to this country up to the end of September, 1949. The agreement provides that during this period we shall be offered a very high proportion of Denmark's exportable surplus of these three commodities. In return we have given Denmark an assured market up to the end of September, 1949, for substantial quantities of bacon and eggs. We are giving guaranteed minimum prices for these quantities, while the actual prices will be settled at specified dates nearer the time at which they will apply. On butter, the price has been fixed up to 30th September, 1947, and the Danes will consult us before they commit themselves to send more than certain specified quantities to other markets during 1948 and 1949. We have agreed with the Danish Government to publish the details of the agreement including prices and quantities early next week.
The prices which we shall pay the Danes for foodstuffs during the first year are higher than the prices which we are paying for similar products from other countries. This is because farm costs in Denmark are today extremely high in relation to costs elsewhere. These relatively high Danish costs are in turn due to the world shortage of animal feeding stuffs on which Danish agriculture is normally so largely dependent.
This situation will, we hope, prove shortlived, but while it lasts it makes the settlement of prices for our traditional imports from Denmark very difficult, and we have had to ask for tolerance and understanding from, for example, our Dominion suppliers. We have kept the Dominions concerned fully informed of our negotiations with Denmark, and I have good reason to believe that once again they are showing that they understand the position.
Moreover, if the prices we are paying appear high to our Dominions suppliers—and for that matter to ourselves—they appear low to the Danish suppliers. Indeed, the Danish Government informs us that it will be necessary for them to recommend to the Danish Parliament the payment of subsidies, to their farmers to supplement the prices we shall pay under


this agreement, and I must pay a tribute to the spirit of goodwill and friendliness in which the Danish Government has carried on negotiations.
In summing up then, the prices we are paying appear high in relation to the prices which we pay for similar products from other sources and low in relation to Danish costs of production. It therefore seems probable that a reasonable compromise had been reached and I am very glad to be able to announce to the House this agreement which should re-establish our traditional trade with Denmark on a firm basis to the great mutual benefit of both countries.

Mr. Boothby: Can the Minister say whether any suggestions have been made to the Danish Government that they might accept payment for this produce in the form of British goods?

Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. Any direct barter agreements of that sort would be undesirable because the Danes will receive sterling, and, with the sterling proceeds of these sales, will be able to buy British goods, which I am glad to say they are buying.

Mr. Henry Usborne: Will the Minister now consider importing a little more cheese and manufactured milk products from Denmark, in order to allow more fresh milk to the chocolate makers in this country so that they can produce more full-cream chocolate?

Mr. Strachey: We intend to buy all the Danish cheese we can.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: While most people will be glad to learn that more food is coming, will the right hon. Gentleman explain how far this new agreement fits in with the terms of the commercial agreement, into which it is shortly proposed to enter; and, secondly, will he give us an undertaking that what is really happening is not that Danish farmers will import feeding stuffs which might have been imported by farmers in this country and that we shall buy the eggs and bacon which they produce at rather higher prices?

Mr. Strachey: As to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, the Danes, like everyone else, are at present

getting practically no feeding stuffs, and those products are produced from their own fodder. In the future, we shall, naturally, put our own farmers in the highest priority as regards feeding stuffs which we are able to procure. As to the first part of the question, I am not clear what commercial agreement the hon. Gentleman has in mind. Is it the United States Agreement?

Mr. Hogg: indicated assent.

Mr. Strachey: There will be nothing whatever in this agreement contrary to the commercial agreement we shall be discussing in the autumn.

Mr. Walkden: Can the Minister tell us whether at any stage in the negotiations, any condition has been inserted in the contract which guarantees to the Danes coal and fertilisers which they badly need, or any forms of feeding stuff for cattle which, I believe, they also badly need, provided we can supply them?

Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. There is no condition of that sort in the agreement. Of course, the Danes need these things, but so do we.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how it is that the Danish supplies of feeding stuffs are so liberal and the British so meagre?

Mr. Strachey: I do not know from where the hon. Member drew that assumption. It is certainly not the case; and the Danish dairy products are, of course, far below their prewar level for the same reason as ours are.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Can the Minister say whether this will mean an addition to the expenditure of money in subsidising the consumer?

Mr. Strachey: I suppose the importation of all products in which there is any increase in price must have that implication as long as British consumer prices are kept stable.

Mr. Norman Bower: Does the statement mean that it will soon be possible to increase the ration of these food stuffs?

Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. I fear we can draw no such implication.

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER)

House, at its rising Tomorrow, to adjourn till Tuesday, 8th October.— [Mr. Herbert Morrison.]

ROYAL ASSENT

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1.Finance Act, 1946.
2.Appropriation Act, 1946.
3.Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1946.
4.National Insurance Act, 1946.
5.New Towns Act, 1946.
6.Isle of Man (Customs) Act, 1946.
7.Civil Aviation Act, 1946.
8.Campbeltown Water, etc., Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
9.Derby Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
10.Ipswich Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
11.Maidstone Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
12.Reading Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
13.Long Eaton Urban District Council Act, 1946.
14.High Wycombe Corporation Act, 1946.
15.Cardiff Corporation Act, 1946.
16.Birmingham Corporation Act, 1946.
17. Tees Conservancy Act, 1946.
18.Rotherham Corporation Act, 1946.
19.Bromborough Dock Act, 1946.
20.West Yorkshire Gas Distribution Act, 1946.

PALESTINE

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. W. Whiteley.]

4.14 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps): I think everybody who was present in the House yesterday must have been struck by the constructive spirit in which the Debate was carried forward, and also by the excellently objective temper in which this very difficult problem was approached. Perhaps the Debate illustrated, by its content, the extreme difficulties of the situation; for, while there was plenty of healthy criticism as regards the solution of this problem in the future, little was advanced by way of proposed alternative courses, other than those which have been thoroughly explored, either by the Committee of Inquiry or by the expert committee mentioned by my right hon. Friend. This afternoon I propose to deal with the future of Palestine, and to leave to my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, who will be speaking later in the Debate, all those many questions that have been raised with regard to the administration of Palestine and past action under the Mandate. Of course, he is far more familiar with all the details of those matters than I could possibly be.
However, before dealing with the future, I must make one matter quite clear as regards the present and the recent past. The British Government, as the responsible authority under the Mandate, are determined—and I think this determination was supported from all sides of the House yesterday—that the future of Palestine shall not be decided by terrorism and by violence. We have fought the greatest war in history to establish that there are better ways of solving political and economic problems than the use of violence and brute force. It would be a betrayal of all that we and the democratic peoples of the world have suffered to achieve what we have achieved, if we were now to give way before the murderous assaults of terrorists in Palestine or any other country. It is encouraging to know that so many Jews throughout the world have disowned these gangs of terrorists, by whom, indeed, so much discredit has been brought to the Jewish case. Law and order must be preserved, at whatever cost. We ask the many non-terrorist


Jews, who far form the vast majority of the population of Palestine, not merely to condemn these excesses but to give their support in routing out the perpetrators of them. As has been repeatedly said in the course of the Debate, there can, of course, be no solution of the Palestinian problem by mere suppression, however essential, at any given moment, that may be in order to preserve law and order. Our ultimate object is, and must be, the attainment of self-government by the two peoples of Palestine. For solving this intractable difficulty, made intractable by the history of events ever since the first world war— events for which this Government, anyway, are in no way responsible—we need a great constructive effort, not only on the part of the British Parliament and Government, but on the part of all those who realise the gravity to the world of the issues with which we are dealing.
This is not a matter in which partisanship can be of any help, difficult though it may be for those whose sympathies have been strongly entrained upon one side or the other. It is essential, if a solution is to be found, that we should look objectively at the problem. One of the most gratifying aspects of the Debate yesterday, as I have mentioned, was the great degree of objectivity shown by practically all those who spoke. That does not, of course, mean we should disregard the very real and deep sentiments of either the Arabs or the Jews. This is no mechanical problem, but one which arises out of those very sentiments. Therefore, we must both understand and appreciate the feelings, the hopes and the desires of both parties, encouraged, indeed, as many of them have been, by sympathisers of all kinds from outside Palestine itself. The high court of Parliament is, in this case, in the position of a high court of equity, and not to be bound by rigid and legalistic rules or the meticulous interpretation of documents, but rather, trying to exercise with impartiality a wise and equitable judgment. There are two claimants to Palestine, both of whom have a good case to put forward, and we might indeed wish that we could reach a decision by a judgment of Solomon, but in this case there is equal objection on both sides to a solution by partition, and so by that means we cannot achieve a quick decision.
The facts of the case can be simply stated. The Jews, persecuted and mal-

treated throughout the Continent of Europe, seek a homeland in Palestine, which they consider was promised to them after the last war. Hundreds of thousands of them have already gone to Palestine, purchased land and initiated activities of every kind, as indeed under the Mandate it was contemplated that they would. Over large tracts of country they have established themselves as citizens of Palestine, and there are still hundreds of thousands who seek admission from the devastated countries of Europe, where so many of their co-religionists have been tortured and murdered. There would indeed be no one who could resist the claim of the Jews were it not for the claims put forward with equal strength by the Arabs. Our sympathies, of course, must be strongly engaged by the long persecuted race of Jews, who under Nazidom have suffered more than any other people in the history of the world, but those sympathies do not entitle us to act unjustly to others. To the Arabs in Palestine, it is of course a part of their homeland too. They have inhabited it for generations, and they see themselves liable to be driven out, or to be subjected to the rule of alien immigrants introduced against their wishes, and despite their protests. It is small comfort to the possessor of property, that some one else can make better use of it than he can himself. It is the basis of his livelihood, and he regards it as his home, in which he has a right of occupation.
History has been hard upon Palestine, attempting as it has done to satisfy those two directly opposed and inconsistent claims. It is too late now, even if it were ever desirable, to go back upon that history of the last 25 years. The Jews have been brought to Palestine in great numbers, and the Arabs still remain there, and no future can be worked out, except upon the basis of these inescapable facts. Neither of the peoples can be removed; they must either be kept perpetually apart by force in separated territories, or be allowed to fight out to a violent and bitter end their differences, or some arrangement must be sought which may eventually allow them to dwell together in peace and in harmony. No one, of course, disputes that this latter is the best way, provided that it proves possible, and it is up to all those who feel deeply the dangers and the tragedy of the situation to exercise their statemanship to achieve such an


arrangement. It is undoubtedly true that in the present temper of the two peoples, recently still further exacerbated by the terrorist outrages, a compromise is excessively difficult. We may have to envisage the need for laying down conditions which we hope will lead ultimately to that compromise, and to go forward with a plan so constructed.
The basis of the plan that has been proposed is a scheme of provincial autonomy upon a cantonal basis. Its object is to obviate an immediate partition with all the inevitable difficulties of international boundaries, the cutting of communications which have been established, the setting up of tariff barriers and all the rest which goes with two independent territories, and also with the abandonment of the hope of any ultimate coming together of the two races in a single territory. The terms of that plan were so fully given by my right hon. Friend yesterday that I do not propose to repeat them, but I would attempt to deal with those points of criticism that arose during yesterday's Debate, bearing in mind that no solution that human ingenuity can suggest will be perfect in the sense of meeting fully the demands of both sides. That is impossible. The most that we can do, in fairness to Jews and Arabs alike, is to try to provide as large a measure of self-government within a limited territory, as the size of that territory will allow. So far as we ourselves are concerned, it is equally important for us to retain the good will of both races. There is nothing to be gained for our country by antagonising either side, and we are equally anxious to maintain our friendship both with the Jews throughout the world and with the great Arab populations of the Middle East.
First, I would like to deal with the very natural criticism that this matter has been delayed, and that it has been finally thrust upon the House of Commons with inadequate notice of the proposals. The key to the understanding of that position lies in our most earnest desire to bring our friends of the United States of America into consultation and agreement. That is not only because of our general desire to work side by side with them upon these world problems, but also because of the special interest which they have taken in the Palestinian problem owing to their own large Jewish population. It was as far back as August of last year that

President Truman addressed to the Prime Minister his request for the immediate admission of 100,000 Jews to Palestine. It was quite obvious that the introduction of such large numbers of Jewish immigrants was impossible without a great deal of planning and finance, and also except as part of a general scheme which would reassure the Arab population as to the situation. Moreover, it was essential, as several speakers have pointed out in the Debate, that this problem of the rescue of the Jews from Europe should not be regarded exclusively as a Palestinian problem. We, therefore, set about immediate negotiations to achieve a joint Anglo-American consideration of the whole problem, the problem of the disposition of those Jews who desired to escape from the conditions under which many of them were still suffering in Europe.
Unfortunately, this was by no means the only urgent international matter which had to be tackled at that time. Other matters also claimed immediate attention. On 13th November we were able to announce that a Joint Committee would be appointed. We had achieved our objective of joint consideration of the problem with the United States of America. On 10th December we were able to give the names of the Committee, which entered forthwith upon its duties, and, ultimately, produced a most valuable Report, which was published on 1st May of this year. We were committed, as I have said, to a joint inquiry, and we hoped that combined action would follow joint inquiry, for we believed, as we believe now, that such combined action would be far more potent, and more likely to succeed, than action by ourselves alone.
The Report of the Joint Committee of Inquiry was, as the House will have seen from perusing it, in a very general form in its recommendations. The form, for instance, of Recommendation 3, which has often been referred to in this Debate, is a good illustration of that fact. It was necessary, therefore, to work out from these general recommendations a precise plan, for it is to be observed—and this must always be borne in mind—that the recommendations formed one complete series and could not be dealt with separately, in isolation. The Report was carefully balanced so as to give preference neither to the Arab nor to the Jew, but


to be fair to both. We, therefore, sought immediate agreement by the United States of America to a joint examination of the Committee's Report by a team of British and American officials, with a view to working out an agreed plan of action.
The United States of America wished, first, to consult only about Recommendation 2, the introduction of 100,000 immigrants, and sent a team for that purpose alone in June of this year, though we pointed out that the scheme must be considered as a whole; and it was not until the beginning of July that the consultation on the rest of the scheme could be started. The report of this latter examination, which was referred to yesterday by my right hon. Friend as the experts' report, and which was carried through with very great expedition and thoroughness, was not finally received by the Government till Friday last, and was then simultaneously submitted to Washington; but till yesterday morning, we did not receive the response of the United States Government, so that it was not possible to give the House any information until my right hon. Friend the Lord President opened the Debate yesterday. The need for agreement is certainly a delaying factor in many difficult international matters, but I am certain that the House will agree with me, that the Government were right in seeking that agreement, even though it may have meant a certain amount of delay in the process.
Now let me come to the merits of the scheme. It has been, I think, generally agreed in this Debate that there are three possible alternatives for Palestine in the future—partition, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) preferred; the present scheme, or something of that character; and, thirdly, the return to the status quo. It is to be observed that the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry make no specific recommendations on how the government of Palestine should be carried on under continuing Mandate or the trusteeship agreement that will supersede it. All they do is to lay down certain general principles in their Recommendation 3, and it was in the elaboration of those principles that the present scheme was adopted—adopted by the unanimous agreement of our own and the United States' representatives. That unanimous agreement would, perhaps, alone, be a

sufficient justification for acceptance, but I will, nevertheless, deal with the criticisms that have been advanced, bearing always in mind that the scheme is based upon the principles of Recommendation 3 of the joint Committee of inquiry.
These criticisms fall under three heads. First, the lack of finality; secondly, that one more attempt should have been made to achieve the unitary system; thirdly, that law and order should not be a central but a provincial subject. Let me deal with these three criticisms. There never can be finality in such arrangements as these, especially when a decision is being sought in an atmosphere of very high tension. What is required is a temporary state of affairs which is capable of being a transition to some ultimate desired conclusion. Partition is, in a sense, no more final than federation. Who can say, for instance, that Ireland has reached finality in her constitution? All these arrangements are stages in a constantly developing world situation. Some, it is true, will last for a longer, and some for a shorter time; but none of them can be regarded as final. We believe that partition would be too violent and sudden a solution; it would, moreover, lead to a great many practical difficulties, many of which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned yesterday, and to a most dangerous state of friction, even if it could be achieved at all without the application of force, which is extremely doubtful. Moreover, it greatly diminishes any future hope of an unitary Palestine, the possibility of which we should certainly not wish to exclude. At least, we wish to preserve a chance of such a thing happening. On the other hand, our proposals may be a transition either to partition or to some form of federal union, whichever proves to be the better or more practical in the light of the experience gained during that transitional period.
The second point is that we could have given the unitary scheme one more trial. I do not think that that was urged with any very great degree of conviction. We certainly believe that such a trial is not now possible, whatever may have been the case, even a few months ago.

Mr. Austin: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks about the unitary scheme, would he not


agree that it would be practicable under the mantle of Socialism in Palestine, under which Arab and Jew could live together in a democracy?

Sir S. Cripps: No. I am afraid that in the state of exacerbation of feeling in Palestine at the present time, it would not be possible to bring Arab and Jew together into an effective unitary Government, whatever principles that Government were going to apply. I do not think, indeed, there are many people in this House who would have any faith in the success of such a further experiment, even if we could get the two parties together to make the attempt.
As regards the centralisation of law and order, it is to be noted—and I do not blame anyone for not noting this yesterday, in view of the way in which the scheme had to be disclosed to the House —that this is a temporary device only, to regulate the initial stages of this new set-up. It is not proposed that it should constitute a permanent feature; but, at the present time, it will provide that relief from fear, which has been stressed, I think, by many speakers, and which is, after all an essential factor to success, if we can achieve it.

Mr. Pickthorn: I did not understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he said that this is not intended to be anything but a temporary feature. Does "this" mean the whole business of cantonisation, or is there some feature that I have missed?

Sir S. Cripps: I was dealing with the centralisation of law and order. The hon. Member will appreciate that under the scheme, it is proposed, in the initial stage, that law and order should be under the Central Government and not the provincial Governments. That is intended to be a purely temporary feature while present difficulties exist.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicate how long he fancies this interim period will last?

Sir S. Cripps: I am afraid that my fancies would not be of much help. As soon as it is felt that the provinces are ready and willing to take over this obligation, and the minorities in those provinces accept the taking over, that would obviously be a suitable time to pass over

this duty to the provincial governments. Where there is such a difficult state of feeling, it is impossible to premise any date in regard to these various happenings. It is not proposed to constitute this as a permanent feature of this scheme, but it will provide this relief during the initial stages. There can be little doubt that if this scheme works successfully it has very great merits from the practical point of view. It substantially makes each race master in its own area, and it will allow the provinces, in practice, to regulate their own immigration, while at the same time not interfering with the common services, such as railways, roads and other matters of that kind, and not encouraging the setting up of rival armed forces.

Mr. Pickthorn: Will electric power become a common service, or will that remain a monopoly?

Sir S. Cripps: I could not say. I do not know whether that has been decided. Electric power would, presumably, not be under the heading of communications.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Does not electric power determine the future absorptive capacity, which in turn affects the future immigration: at the same time immigration rests with the provinces?

Sir S. Cripps: I said that in practice the regulation of immigration will be with the provinces. Technically it will remain at the centre, but the centre will act only on the advice of the provinces as to the number to be permitted for immigration. It will be for the provinces to act and not the centre. I also said that this would not encourage the setting up of rival armed forces, which is a matter of very great importance as regards the future of Palestine. These are substantial matters of advantage, as is also the possibility—and this to some extent covers the point which was raised about electric power—of combined planning of those types of new developments which are capable of serving both areas equally well.
The difficulty was raised yesterday of the definition of the boundaries between the provinces. I would merely make the observation upon that point, that these difficulties will be far less than would be the difficulties of settling the final boundaries under a partition scheme. These


boundaries will certainly have some degree of finality, in that it is laid down that they cannot be altered without the consent of both provinces. That should satisfy the Arabs that it will protect them from what, I think, has sometimes been referred to as the "silent invasion." We believe that with the acquiescence of the two races this scheme will prove workable. It should be regarded not as a rigid final decision, but as an important stage in the effort to achieve collaboration and cooperation of the peoples in the government of their own country.
I would here once again stress, that this plan must be considered as a carefully balanced whole. In some parts it may be said to favour the Jews—as regards immigration—and in other parts it may benefit the Arabs—as regards the increase in social services and so on, in the Arab areas. It must be considered as one complete plan, to the success of which both the help which we are prepared to give, and that proposed from the United States are equally essential contributions. It was for that reason that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council stressed yesterday the fact that the full implementation of this plan depends upon the cooperation of the United States. We certainly hope most earnestly that such cooperation will be forthcoming. Without it, we shall not be able to burden the people of this country with the whole of the finances which would be necessary to carry through this new scheme. One or two hon. Members yesterday made the suggestion that the whole matter ought now to be referred to U.N.O. for fresh decisions and suggestions. It will of course be necessary for the terms of the trusteeship agreement which is to supersede the Mandate to be settled by U.N.O. but to delay all action still further, until we get the agreement of U.N.O. would mean a quite unacceptable delay; indeed, many hon. Members have already stressed the need for a speedy decision, and have noted quite rightly the deterioration in atmosphere that has gone on while we have been awaiting the present agreement. In the existing circumstances we believe a quick decision to be absolutely essential. As my right hon. Friend the Lord President has stated, it is our intention to discuss this matter with both the Arabs and the Jews, both inside and outside Palestine. We hope to get representative Jews from various countries, as well

as in Palestine, and Arabs in Palestine, as well as the Arab States, to come together and discuss this plan and give their views on it.

Hon. Members: When will that be?

Sir S. Cripps: As soon as possible. We realise the need for both races to be fully represented, and we hope, whatever their antagonisms, that they will rind it possible to come together on these vital discussions of the future of Palestine.

Mr. Crossman: Will outside representatives be invited?

Sir S. Cripps: We do not know what representatives they will want to select. The intention is to give them a very wide power of selection.

Mr. Keeling: Have the invitations yet been issued, and what date has been suggested?

Sir S. Cripps: Some of the invitations have already been issued. Discussions are going on with the parties concerned as to the issue of other invitations. The actual date has not been fixed.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: When the right hon. Gentleman says that it is intended to give the widest possible choice of representation, he is not intending to infer, I hope, that there is any intention of side-tracking the Jewish Agency?

Sir S. Cripps: There is no such intention at all. We hope to have discussions tomorrow with the Jewish representatives.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the representatives of the United States will be taking part in these discussions?

Sir S. Cripps: They do not wish to take any part in the discussion, although they may be there in the capacity of observers.

Mr. Mikardo: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is proposed to invite the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem to this Conference?

Sir S. Cripps: There will be no invitation issued to the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. What will happen if the Arabs wish him to come, we shall decide when we get the request.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: In view of what has appeared in today's Press, has the right hon. and learned Gentleman any assurance that America will send observers there at all, since they have not signified their approval?

Sir S. Cripps: We have no assurance. We know that, in any event, they will probably not wish to partake in it, but they will be very welcome as observers, if they wish to come.

Mr. Keenan: Can my right hon. Friend say to what extent the United States will be involved? Is their obligation purely a financial one?

Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. Member will be good enough to read again in HANSARD the statement made yesterday, I think that he will see the answer to his question, subject to the fact that the United States Government have not yet accepted the scheme. It is only their representatives on the expert body who have agreed to it. I was stressing, when these questions were put to me, that this problem is, of course, not merely an Arab and Jewish problem, though they are the parties most vitally concerned. The repercussions of this problem will be felt throughout the Middle East, and, indeed, wherever Arab and Jewish communities may be found all over the world. That is why we wish to have representatives from outside Palestine as well as those from inside. I would like, therefore, to emphasise again that the Palestinian problem is not the same problem as that of the allocation of the persecuted Jews of Europe. Palestine may help in the solution of this latter problem, but it certainly can never cope with the whole of it, and it is for that reason that we welcome the first recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry, and will do all that we can to see that it is carried into effect. Other countries must be persuaded to open their doors to these people, who have suffered so much and so long from the brutalities of Nazi persecution. No one must imagine that the extension of immigration into Palestine, if it takes place, is alone going to provide the solution to the whole of this question.
I was asked yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol about the new prospects of settlement in South America. These are not yet definite, but, as he is probably aware, an

inter-Governmental committee on this matter is at the present moment sitting at Rio, and a number of the South American States have already expressed their willingness to accept refugees from Europe.

Earl Winterton: May I point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that when I was chairman of the inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees they expressed their willingness to do so and that is some six years ago? It is not a question of their expressing willingness; it is a question of taking it up.

Sir S. Cripps: I quite appreciate the difficulty. We have had a war since then, which has made some little difference to the situation. The first question of this reconsideration is to get the willingness, and then work out the plan. That is the scheme which is under way. I have recently had some experience of the difficulties which arise from an attempt to settle problems of self-government for two large communities, in a vast territory, in which they have both lived for centuries, and where they have long shared a common life. That is proving hard enough, but, in this case, we are dealing with a comparatively small territory providing little room for expansion, inhabited on the one hand by a race who have been long and comparatively sparsely settled, and on the other by a small section of a large widely scattered race with no other homeland of their own, continually pressing to introduce more and more of their people who have been forced brutally out of their established homes and occupations in other countries. It is not to be wondered at that the solution of that problem is one of immense difficulty, and that the sentiments and emotions of both sides are running crest-high today. Both sides have in the past, from time to time, resorted to violence because of the intensity of their racial and national feelings. Today they stand facing one another in bitter antagonism. We have the unenviable lot of attempting to maintain impartially law and order, in this tense situation, and no praise is too high for those many fellow-citizens of ours who have given and are giving unstintingly of their service, and, indeed, in all too many cases, of their lives to carry out this most difficult task.
In those circumstances, I would ask every responsible person to have regard to the basic facts, and to do their utmost to assuage these bitter, feelings and not exacerbate them still more by arguments of partisanship. In the long run, however it comes about, whether by violence, agreement or compromise, Arabs and Jews will have to live together in Palestine. Surely, both races must realise that war and bloodshed cannot produce for them any fair and satisfactory solution of their difficulty. Neither side can drive the other out of the country, and the world has, I hope, decided that it will not in future allow such differences to be settled by the violence of war. It is in our interest to maintain our friendship and good relations with both races. We are impartial in our desire to help them to the wisest and fairest solution of their difficulties. We have asked our American friends to consult with us, and the experts of both countries have unanimously agreed upon this plan in the interest of world peace and the future of Palestine as a whole.
I would beg the two peoples to pause a moment and consider, not putting aside, of course, their strongly held opinions, but realising how much both may gain by the avoidance of war, and by agreement on a way of sharing the prosperity which cooperation alone can bring to their country. We have put forward this plan because it seems to us to hold within it the seeds of a hopeful future. It is not perfect, but it provides a method by which the two races can live side by side, enjoying a large measure of immediate self-government without sacrificing the benefit of a united Palestine. The future alone can determine how such a scheme will develop, but it holds within it the possibility of future cooperation of Arabs and Jews for their mutual benefit.
We put it forward, and we invite discusssion on it by the interested parties, but whatever comes from those discussions it is essential, if we are to avoid the horrors of a civil war, that some decision as to Palestine's future should be quickly made. Though all of us largely condemn terrorism we fully realise how unkind history has been to the inhabitants of Palestine over the last 25 years. We certainly do not claim that all successive British Governments during that time have acted with perfect wisdom, or that Arabs and Jews

are alone to blame for the difficulties that have arisen. All, no doubt, have made mistakes, but no examination of past errors will get us out of the present difficulties. That can be achieved and only achieved by the concentrated and constructive efforts of all parties affected. We accept our duty, and we offer our services in a great cooperative attempt to solve, once and for all, these stubborn difficulties which have so long bedevilled that land, which saw the birth of the Founder of our religion, and which should contain for all of us an inspiration for justice and for peace.

5.1 p.m.

Mr. Churchill: The House is, naturally, obliged to the President of the Board of Trade for the painstaking speech which he has delivered to us, and which supplements, in many points, the interesting and detailed statement delivered by the Lord President of the Council yesterday. We are also much obliged to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), whose speech, I think, furnished the House with a wealth of carefully thought, judiciously selected and rightly produced facts, and represents a very large body of our opinion at the present time upon this most difficult question. In the short time during which I will venture to occupy the House, I am going to touch a little on some of the grave realities which lie outside the peaceful tones of the oration of the President of the Board of Trade, and the quiet circumstances of this House, because the situation in which we are placed is a very grievous one, and one which is not improving at all. I must also go back a little into the past, because on this question we have got to look to the past.
The position which I, personally, have adopted and maintained dates from 1919 and 1921, when as Dominions and Colonial Secretary, it fell to me to define, with the approval of the then Cabinet and Parliament, the interpretation that was placed upon our obligations to the Zionists under the Mandate for Palestine entrusted to us by the League of Nations. This was the declaration of 1922, which I, personally, drafted for the approval of the authorities of the day. Palestine was not to be a Jewish National Home, but there was to be set up a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Jewish immigration would be allowed up to the limit of the


economic absorptive capacity—that was the phrase which I coined in those days and which seems to remain convenient— the Mandatory Power being, it was presumed, the final judge of what that capacity was. During the greater part of a quarter of a century which has passed, this policy was carefully carried out by us. The Jewish population multiplied, from about 80,000 to nearly 600,000. Tel-Aviv expanded into the great city it is, a city which, I may say, during this war and before it, welcomed and nourished waifs and orphans flying from Nazi persecution. Many refugees found a shelter and a sanctuary there, so that this land, not largely productive of the means of life, became a fountain of charity and hospitality to people in great distress. Land reclamation and cultivation and great electrical enterprises progressed. Trade made notable progress, and not only did the Jewish population increase but the Arab population, dwelling in the areas colonised and enriched by the 'Jews, also increased in almost equal numbers. The Jews multiplied six-fold and the Arabs developed 500,000, thus showing that both races gained a marked advantage from the Zionist policy which we pursued and which we were developing over this period.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade spoke of the past 25 years as being the most unkind or unhappy Palestine has known. I imagine that it would hardly be possible to state the opposite of the truth more compendiously. The years during which we have accepted the Mandate have been the brightest that Palestine has known and were full of hope. Of course, there was always friction, because the Jew was, in many cases, allowed to go far beyond the strict limits of the interpretation which was placed upon the Mandate. Disturbances occurred in 1937 and in 1938; in 1939 Mr. Chamberlain's Government produced the White Paper, which limited immigration other than on the ground of the economic absorptive capacity of the country. That, after a five-year interval, would have brought immigration to an end except by agreement with the Arab majority, which certainly would not have been obtained. This was in my view a failure to fulfil the obligations we had accepted, and I

immediately protested against this departure. I found myself in full agreement with the Labour and Liberal Parties of those days.
I see that yesterday the Leader of the Liberal Party, who is not here today, in paying a tribute to my speech on that occasion deplored the fact that I had not the courage to vote against the Government. As to the courage that is required for one to give a vote against the Government one is elected to support, we no doubt shall have many examples today. I did take the trouble to look up the Divisions on that occasion, and I have for greater security brought this bulky volume to the Table. I find that I did vote against the Government of the day in support of the reasoned Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Lord President of the Council and that was the subject on which I spoke. However, I think that, on the whole, Members can always speak and not vote, though it is better to let the vote follow the speech. In this case, I conformed to the strictest tenets, and I trust that when the Leader of the Liberal Party rejoins his flock, they may acquaint him of the fact that his great responsibilities and multifarious duties have, no doubt, led him to an oversight, and a complete mis-statement of a matter of fact.
I have never altered my opinion that the White Paper constituted a negation of Zionist policy which, the House must remember, was an integral and indispensable condition of the Mandate. That is the view which I hold today. It was violently resented by the Jews in Palestine, and by world Jewry, a large majority of whom—although there are notable exceptions—regard Zionism as a great ideal, and as the cherished hope of their race, scattered throughout the world. Then came the war. After the fall of France, and the attack upon us by Italy, when we stood utterly alone, we had great need to concentrate our troops against the enemy, and economise in our outlying garrisons and commitments. At my desire, the Jewish community and Palestrne was armed, encouraged to organise and, in fact, to play a part in the defence of the Holy Land, to liberate British units there. The horrible persecutions by the Nazis left no doubt as to which side they were on, or could be on. The possibility of


a German invasion, striking through Turkey, Syria and Palestine to the Suez Canal, as well as through Persia, towards the Persian Gulf, and at what were then deemed to be our vital communications, at what was then considered to be an important element in our affairs—our Eastern Empire and possessions, as well as Australia and New Zealand—was a very real anxiety in 1941–42. At a most critical time in 1941, it was aggravated by the revolt of the pro-German Arab elements in Iraq. No doubt our Zionist, policy may have led, in part, to that divergence of Arab sentiment. But the revolt was quelled, Syria was liberated, and Persia was occupied. Immense preparations and fortifications were made against German penetration of the Caucasus, and this danger complicated the whole defence of Europe from the West. But this menace was removed, at once and for ever, by the victories of Stalingrad and El Alamein.
Meanwhile, the Jewish community had developed strong, well-armed forces, and the highest military authorities reported to the Cabinet during 1941–42 that if the continued bickerings between Jews and Arabs grew into serious conflict, the Jews could not only defend themselves, but would beat the Arabs in Palestine, though that was, of course, the very opposite position from that which existed at the time of the Mandate, in 1919. At that time, the Jews were a defenceless minority, and it was a great part of our duty to protect them from the hostility of the very much stronger Arab forces who emerged with so much distinction and credit from the struggle against the Turks. Thus, there are two facts to be borne in mind. First, that Zionists and the Palestine Jews were vehemently and undividedly on our side in the struggle and, secondly, that they no longer need our assistance to maintain themselves in their national home against local Arab hostility. A general attack upon them by all surrounding Arab States would be a different matter, and that would clearly be one which would have to be settled by the United Nations organisation. But the position is different from what it was when the Mandate was granted.
Meanwhile how did we treat the Arabs? We have treated them very well. The House of Hussein reigns in Iraq. Feisal was placed on the throne, his grandson

is there today. The Emir Abdullah, whom I remember appointing at Jerusalem, in 1921, to be in charge of Transjordania, is there today. He has survived the shocks, strains and stresses which have altered almost every institution in the world. He has never broken his faith and loyalty to this country. Syria and the Lebanon owe their independence to the great exertions made by the British Government to make sure that the pledges made by them, at the time when we were weak, but, nevertheless, were forced to take action by entering the country to drive out the Vichy French, were honoured. We have insisted on those pledges being made good. I cannot touch on the Arabs without paying my tribute to this splendid, king, Ibn Saud, of Saudi Arabia, who in the darkest hours never failed to send messages and encouragement of his unshakable faith that we should win and gain through. I cannot admit that we have not done our utmost to treat the Arabs in a way which so great a race deserves and requires. There was no greater champion of Arab rights than the late Colonel Lawrence. He was a valued friend of mine, and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), who served with him in the Desert. With him I always kept in very close touch. There was great anxiety and dispute about this matter in the last war, when I was in the responsible position, at the Colonial Office, of dealing with it. When Colonel Lawrence gave me his book "The Seven. Pillars of Wisdom," he wrote in it that I had made a happy end to this show. I will not have it that the way we treated this matter was inconsiderate to the Arabs. On the contrary, I think that they have had a very fair deal from Great Britain. With all those countries which are given to their power and control, in every way they have had a very fair deal. It was little enough, indeed, that we had asked for the Jews—a natural home in their historic Holy Land, on which they have the power and virtue to confer many blessings for enjoyment, both of Jew and Arab.
It is quite true that the claims and desires of the Zionists latterly went beyond anything Which was agreed to by the Mandatory Power. This caused alarm and unrest among the Arabs, but the limits of the policy which I explained to the House have never been exceeded by


any British Government, and if they are discharged they constitute the faithful fulfilment of our pledges, on which the Mandate hangs. At the General Election which followed the victorious ending of the German war, the Labour Party, which was believed to champion the Zionist cause in the terms I have defined, and not only in those terms, but going, in many cases, far beyond—to set up a Jewish State in Palestine, and so forth; quotations have been used, and one reads them, but there is no dispute on the matter—this Labour Party, some of whom we see here today, gained a large majority in the House of Commons. During the Election, they made most strenuous pro-Zionist speeches and declarations. Many of their most important leaders were known to be ardent supporters of the Zionist cause, and their success was, naturally, regarded by the Jewish community in Palestine as a prelude to the fulfilment of the pledges which had been made to them, and indeed opening the way to further ambitions. This was certainly the least which everybody expected.
In fact, all sorts of hopes were raised among the Jews of Palestine, just as other hopes were raised elsewhere. However, when the months slipped by and no decided policy or declaration was made by the present Government, a deep and bitter resentment spread throughout the Palestine Jewish community, and violent protests were made by the Zionist supporters in the United States. The disappointment and disillusionment of the Jews at the procrastination and indecision of the British Labour Government are no excuse, as we have repeatedly affirmed here, for the dark and deadly crimes which have been committed by the fanatical extremists, and these miscreants and murderers should be rooted out, and punished with the full severity of the law. We are all agreed about that, and I was glad to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade affirm the intention of the Government not to be coerced by terrorism. But the expectations which had been aroused by the party opposite, and the resultant revulsion of feeling, are facts, none the less, to be held constantly before our minds. They cannot say all these things, and then let a whole year pass away and do nothing about it, and then be sur-

prised if these pledges come home to roost in a most unpleasant manner.
Had I had the opportunity of guiding the course of events after the war was won a year ago, I should have faithfully pursued the Zionist cause as I have defined it; and I have not abandoned it today, although this is not a very popular moment to espouse it; but there are two things to say about it. First, I agree entirely with what the President of the Board of Trade said on this point—no one can imagine that there is room in Palestine for the great masses of Jews who wish to leave Europe, or that they could be absorbed in any period which it is now useful to contemplate. The idea that the Jewish problem could be solved or even helped by a vast dumping of the Jews of Europe into Palestine is really too silly to consume our time in the House this afternoon. I am not absolutely sure that we should be in too great a hurry to give up the idea that European Jews may live in the countries where they belong. I must say that I had no idea, when the war came to an end, of the horrible massacres which had occurred; the millions and millions that have been slaughtered. That dawned on us gradually after the struggle was over. But if all these immense millions have been killed and slaughtered, there must be a certain amount of living room for the survivors, and there must be inheritances and properties to which they can lay claim. Are we not to hope that some tolerance will be established in racial matters in Europe, and that there will be some law reigning by which, at any rate, a portion of the property of these great numbers will not be taken away from them? It is quite clear, however, that this crude idea of letting all the Jews of Europe go into Palestine has no relation either to the problem of Europe or to the problem which arises in Palestine.

Mr. S. Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting, is he, that any Jew who regarded a country in Europe as nothing but the graveyard and cemetery of all his relatives, friends and hopes should be compelled to stay there if he did not want to do so?

Mr. Churchill: I am against preventing Jews from doing anything which other people are allowed to do. I am against that, and I have the strongest abhorrence


of the idea of anti-Semitic lines of prejudice. Secondly, I have for some years past—this is really the crux of the argument I am venturing to submit to the House—felt that an unfair burden was being thrown upon Great Britain by our having to bear the whole weight of the Zionist policy, while Arabs and Moslems —or Muslims, as they are called by a certain school of political thought—then so important to our Empire, were alarmed and estranged, and while the United States, for the Government and people of which I have the greatest regard and friendship, and other countries, sat on the sidelines and criticised our shortcomings with all the freedom of perfect detachment and irresponsibility. Therefore, I had always intended to put it to our friends in America, from the very beginning of the postwar discussions, that either they should come in and help us in this Zionist problem, about which they feel so strongly, and as I think rightly, on even terms, share and share alike, or that we should resign our Mandate, as we have, of course, a perfect right to do.
Indeed, I am convinced that from the moment when we feel ourselves unable to carry out properly and honestly the Zionist policy as we have all these years defined it and accepted it, and which is the condition on which we received the Mandate for Palestine, it is our duty at any rate to offer to lay down the Mandate. We should, therefore, as soon as the war stopped, have made it clear to the United States that, unless they came in and bore their share, we would lay the whole care and burden at the feet of the United Nations organisation; and we should have fixed a date by which all our troops and forces would be withdrawn from the country. At that time we had no interest in Palestine. We have never sought or got anything out of Palestine. We have discharged a thankless, painful, costly, laborious, inconvenient task for more than a quarter of a century with a very great measure of success. Many people have made fine speeches about the Zionist question. Many have subscribed generously in money, but it is Great Britain, and Great Britain alone, which has steadfastly carried that cause forward across a whole generation to its present actual position, and the Jews all over the world ought not to be in a hurry to forget that. If in the Jewish movement or in

the Jewish Agency there are elements of murder and outrage which they cannot control, and if these strike not only at their best but at their only effective friends, they and the Zionist cause must inevitably suffer from the grave and lasting reproach of the atrocious crimes which have been committed. It is perfectly clear that Jewish warfare directed against the British in Palestine will, if protracted, automatically release us from all obligations to persevere, as well as destroy the inclination to make further efforts in British hearts. Indeed, there are many people who are very near that now. We must not be in a hurry to turn aside from large causes which we have carried far.
There is the figure of Dr. Weizmann, that dynamic Jew ,whom I have known so long, the ablest and wisest leader of the cause of Zionism, his whole life devoted to the cause, his son killed in the battle for our common freedom. I ardently hope his authority will be respected by Zionists in this dark hour, and that the Government will keep in touch with him, and make every one of his compatriots feel how much he is respected here. It is perfectly clear that in that case we shall have the best opportunities of carrying this matter further forward.
I am sorry to weary the House with these reminiscences and "might have beens" but it was my intention when the war was over to place this position before our American friends in the plainest words—the plainest words, which, spoken in good will and good faith, are the words to which Americans are most likely to respond. I am in full accord with every effort the Government have made to obtain American support in sharing the burden of the Zionist policy. The Anglo-American Committee was a step in the right direction, the negotiations which have taken place since are another favourable step, as was this scheme which has been read out as agreed to by the expert bodies joined in this Committee. It is far more important that there should be agreement than that there should be this or that variant of the scheme. I fully agree that the Government were right to labour with the United States; I will not try to examine the various schemes of partition or cantonisation which have been put forward, nor would I dwell on that idea, which I


always championed, of a wider union— an Arab-Jew federal system of four or live States in the Middle East, which would have been one of the great Powers, with Jew and Arab combined together to share the glory and mutually protect and help each other. As I say, almost any solution in which the United States will join us could be made to work.
All these processes of inquiry, negotiation and discussion have been the occasion, so frequently referred to in this Debate, of prolonged and very dangerous delays and if at the end of all these delays success is not attained, namely, Anglo-American cooperation on equal terms to carry out a Zionist policy within the limits defined or as we may agree— if that is not attained then we are confronted with a deplorable failure in the conduct of our affairs in Palestine since the end of the second great war. It was with very great regret that I read this morning of the non-agreement of the United States, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, quite bluntly and bleakly told us that there was no agreement at the present time. I hope it is not the final word. This agreement was the one great goal to which we were invited to aspire; here was the one excuse the Government could put forward for the long delays and indecisions which have involved us in so much cost and serious bloodshed. If this Anglo-American cooperation fails, as it seems so far to have failed, then I must say that the record of the Administration during this year—and a Government must be judged by results—in the handling of Palestinian affairs will stand forth as a monument of incapacity.
It may be that they have had difficul-1ies but Governments are judged by results. I turned up with a number of defeats during the war and I was very much criticised about it. I had several times to come down with reports of defeats, but when afterwards there were successes we were entitled to be praised. Up to this particular minute, this has been a complete failure; it has gone from bad to worse, and one does not feel that there is any grip of the matter which is going to succeed. The one rightful, reasonable, simple, and compulsive lever which we held and, if you will, still hold, was and is a sincere readiness to resign the

mission, to lay our Mandate at the feet of the United Nations organisation and thereafter to evacuate the country with which we have no connection or tradition and where we have no sovereignty as in India and no treaty as in Egypt. Such was the position we could have adopted until a few months ago, and I am sure it would have procured a good result. The cogency of such a statement once it was believed would, I am sure, make the solution much more possible, and if no solution was obtained, then our responsibilities would have been honourably discharged. Once make it clear that the British have no interests in remaining in Palestine and no wish to do so, and that they decline to carry forward single-handed this harsh, invidious burden, then you will get attention paid to what you say and what you ask and all kinds of good solutions for the Jew and Arab alike, based on the cooperation and resources of the English-speaking world, will immediately come into the field of possibility.
However, His Majesty's Government by their precipitate abandonment of their treaty rights in Egypt, and, in particular, the Suez Canal zone, are now forced to look for a strong place of arms, for a jumping-off ground in Palestine in order to protect the Canal from outside Egypt. By this unwisdom they have vitiated disinterestedness and we can now be accused of having a national strategic motive for retaining our hold on Palestine. I must regard this as a very grave disaster and an immense weakening of our position. What the Government have done in Egypt—though no doubt from very good motives—has greatly weakened our moral position in Palestine by stripping us of our disinterestedness in that country. I pointed out in the Debate on Egyptian policy a few weeks ago, that the moment we were dependent upon Palestine for a base from which to defend the Suez Canal, we should greatly hamper all possibility of obtaining American cooperation. Well, look at the position to which we have now been brought.
Take stock round the world at the present moment; after all, we are entitled to survey the whole field. We declare ourselves ready to abandon the mighty Empire and Continent of India with all the work we have done in the last 200 years, territory over which we possess unimpeachable sovereignty. The Govern-


ment are, apparently, ready to leave the 400 million Indians to fall into all the horrors of sanguinary civil war—civil war compared to which anything that could happen in Palestine would be microscopic; wars of elephants compared with wars of mice. Indeed we place the independence of India in hostile and feeble hands, heedless of the dark carnage and confusion which will follow. We scuttle from Egypt which we twice successfully defended from foreign massacre and pillage. We scuttle from it, we abandon the Canal zone about which our treaty rights were and still are indefeasible, but now, apparently, the one place where we are at all costs and at all inconveniences to hold on and fight it out to the death is Palestine, and we are to be at war with the Jews of Palestine, and, if necessary, with the Arabs of Palestine. For what reason? Not, all the world will say, for the faithful discharge of our long mission, but because we have need, having been driven out of Egypt, to secure a satisfactory strategic base from which to pursue our Imperial aims.
I thank the House for listening. I have trespassed on their time at some length, but I wish to look forward before I conclude and not to look back. I will not go so far in criticising and in censuring without proposing positive action, with all the responsibility and the exposure to counterattack which one incurs when one proposes definite and serious action. Here is the action—action this day. I think the Government should say that if the United States will not come and share the burden of the Zionist cause, as defined or as agreed, we should now give notice that we will return our Mandate to U.N.O. and that we will evacuate Palestine within a specified period. At the same time, we should inform Egypt that we stand by our treaty rights and will, by all means, maintain our position in the Canal zone. Those are the two positive proposals which I submit, most respectfully, to the House. In so far as the Government may have hampered themselves in any way from adopting these simple policies, they are culpable in the last degree, and the whole Empire and the Commonwealth will be the sufferers from their mismanagement.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: It would be quite wrong on my part if I were to follow the right hon.

Gentleman into the area of discussion he initiated at the end of his speech, regarding strategic affairs in Egypt or in India, or in the Canal zone. If I make a reference to it it is to say only that it would not be a very great service to the cause of the Jewish National Home, which the right hon. Gentleman has done so much to help in these past 25 years, to have its fortunes linked up with merely reactionary Imperial courses all over the world. I take it that my hon. Friends here do not believe—and I am sure they will say so if they do believe—that our course of action in Palestine, right or wrong, has been dictated by any military needs of the British Empire, or that the rights and wrongs of this matter are bedevilled by strategic or Imperial considerations of any kind. I say no more of it than that.
The next point I would like to make is a reference to what was said yesterday by the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), who declared that the House of Commons had been cavalierly treated in this matter. We are having a most useful Debate, a constructive Debate, and I hope that it will prove in the end to be a very helpful Debate; but I cannot see why we should not have had it six months or eight months or nine months ago. There is nothing that has been said on either side of the House which could not have been said long ago, and indeed to have said it at the beginning instead of at the end might have had two very important results. One is that the basis of discussion on which we are inviting the United States to cooperate would have been made known and made clear from the beginning. Why need there be any secrecy about it? The other is that we should not have left, as we did leave, not merely Jews in Palestine, but Jews in the displaced persons camps in Germany, in hopeless and helpless silence.
It was inevitable that the Debate should have been overshadowed at its commencement by the outrage in Jerusalem last week. Everyone can appreciate the feelings that such an outrage engendered. I do not want to say another word about it. I do not even want to say a word about General Barker, in connection with whom so much misunderstanding was expressed in various parts of the House yesterday. I can understand it too. I wonder how many Members who were


Members of the last Parliament remember the occasion in 1942, early in December, when, at long last, the great Powers, the Allies, became reluctantly convinced that Hitler really did mean to annihilate the whole of the Jewish population of Europe. What will be recalled is the moment that will compare with any other moment in the history of this House, when the whole crowded House—an unprecedented thing to do and not provided for by any Standing Order—rose to its feet and stood in silent homage to those who were about to die.
We could not do much to help them. No one desired that our war activity should be moderated in any sort of way or that our war effort should be in any way weakened in order to bring succour to those threatened people. Surely, at that moment we undertook some obligation to any who, in spite of all, might survive. Not many did. I know that the House gets tired, as I get tired myself, of recounting the numbers of people who went through the gas chambers, but I beg hon. Members whose sympathy was so deeply roused about General Barker and who understand so well how the deaths of people known to us and dear to us can make us say unbalanced things, and do things that otherwise we should not have done, to show some kind of understanding for the people in Palestine and elsewhere, who have not lost 100 people but who have lost 6,000,000 people. If they, too, get overstrained and do things that they ought not to do, say things that they ought not to say, and get, as a result, more disaster and more bitterness, however much we may condemn it and however much we may condemn General Barker's words, let us show some understanding. That is all I want to say about that, except that it leads one to this: On both sides of the House people still talk about not allowing Jews to be expelled from Europe. I agree. It would be a poor result of the past six years of war, unless we could create conditions everywhere in the world in which men could live in free and equal citizenship without regard to race, creed or colour. If there are Jews who are prepared to remain and contribute again of their best to the reconstruction of European civilisation, at least conditions ought to be created that will enable them to do so; but I repeat that no one ought to be compelled to remain who wishes to go.
Let me tell the House a story. I do not suppose anyone would mind the name being mentioned but I will not give it unless I am pressed for it. I knew a German Jew who was born in Berlin, aged now perhaps a year or two under 40; his father was born in Germany and his grandfather and great grandfathers go back for 1,000 years. He married a German Jewish girl in Berlin. They had a little house and a little business and a little boy, and lived there until Christmas of 1941, when a large black Nazi car arrived at their little house and took away his wife and his little boy. The next morning another car arrived and took him away, and he spent the next four or five years in various concentration camps, miraculously surviving, until I found him in Belsen last August as vice-chairman of the Central Committee of Displaced Persons. He has never heard of his wife or his boy since. He will never hear of his wife or his boy again.
What do hon. Members think ought to be done with Mr. Wollheim? Send him back to Berlin? No, I do not believe there is anybody who would do it. Send him as a refugee or exile or alien to some other country that might be induced to receive him as an act of charity? No, if there is any other fate open to him. If he wants to go to a land in respect of which we are pledged to create a national home, where he will be no stranger and no exile but a returning son back to his own land and people to live his own life in his own surroundings, is he not entitled to go—

Mr. Blackburn: Will the hon. Member give some estimate of. the total numbers of Jews who would fall into this category, and what he thinks could be done with that estimated number?

Mr. Silverman: If my hon. Friend wants to study this question, he will find an opportunity for studying it of greater profit than by making interventions in speeches in a Debate. This question has been examined time after time. My hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman)—I think I may say he will not mind—had his doubts about this, very serious doubts, before he became a member of the Anglo-American Committee. He has no doubts now. He signed the unanimous Report. That


Report says that there are some 500,000 or 600,000 people in Europe who must get out, and if we multiply Mr. Wollheim by only 100,000 we get recommendation No. 2 of the Report of the Anglo-American Committee.
It is said—and my hon. Friend implied it by his question—why only Palestine? I have given some reasons why Palestine is the only possible place for some of these people, but suppose one agrees that the whole problem cannot be so solved and that other nations must take their share of responsibility and discharge their obligations, which is, after all, an obligation upon the conscience of all the world. Statements are made in Debate about international refugee associations and agreements. The Colonial Secretary probably knows—if he does not know, I recommend him to consult the Foreign Secretary—that the International Refugee Organisation under U.N.O. is not concerned with the Palestine problem at all but is concerned with displaced persons as a whole. They made careful inquiry among all the nations of the world to see what proportion, if any, would be taken by each. I have not the time to give to the House now—I have the documents— the detailed answers. I beg the House to accept it from me that it amounted to just nothing whatever.

Mr. Stokes: Shame.

Mr. Silverman: I heard an hon. Member asking about South America. I heard it being said, "Some South American States have promised to take some refugees. Have any others undertaken to take some refugees?" But they have selected the refugees, imposed conditions as to time and place of residence, as to not living together, as to language, as to race and as to religion; and the result is that those States are not available to any of the persons for whom this question is the real question—none at all. I should not like to accuse the Lord President of the Council of being deliberately cynical. I am sure he had no intention of being deliberately cynical, but to say that we have done our share and that we have given a lead in discharging our obligation to the Jewish survivors of this holocaust because we have taken in 170,000 Poles—was he really intending to laugh at us? Is it some sort of bad joke? That is how it would be regarded everywhere in the world in a situation

which has been exacerbated time after time by slipshod statements of that kind bearing no relation whatever to the facts and inflaming passions everywhere where the matter is of vital importance.
For weeks and months we have pressed the Home Secretary not to take in vast numbers, but only this—that if we find in a displaced persons camp in Germany some surviving man or woman or child whose only relatives left in the world are living in comfort in this country and are willing to take them here, let just those come in. That has nothing to do with Palestine, that has nothing to do with the National Home, and it has nothing to do with any wide political problem of any kind. Just that handful of people who have anybody else left in the world and have been luckier than their comrades and associates in that they have some relatives surviving here—let them come in. After weeks and months we got an announcement of a narrowly limited series of categories designed to let these people in. That was in January. What the position is now I do not know, but up to three weeks ago not one person had come into the country under that scheme. And we talk about discharging our obligation and taking our share of the responsibility. America is going to take 53,000.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Is that each year?

Mr. Silverman: That is their normal quota. That is nothing to do with Jews or displaced persons. That is the exact quota that they would have taken if no war had occurred, if no Jew had been killed and if there had been no displaced persons in the world. It is the quota resumed after six or seven years. It is laughable to talk as though this was a practical suggestion for dealing with an immediate difficulty. We know, they know, everybody knows that it is only words to say that the responsibility must be shared by all other nations. It will remain mere words until the nations show some signs not merely that they verbally accept a share of the responsibility, but that they are actively prepared to discharge it. There is a community ready to receive these people. The 600,000 Jews who live in Palestine, who won Palestine back from the desert, form the one solid haven of refuge that is open,


the only place in the world where they want to go, and the only place in the world ready to receive them. Yet, for 12 solid months, a Socialist Government in this country has kept them out, preaching patience and restraint, preaching nonviolence. It is so easy, is it not? There they sit in your concentration camp yet, still waiting for any word of hope from this country.
Your enemies can take your life; your enemies can take your property; they can take your house; they can take your livelihood; they can take everything from you—breath itself—but only your friends can inflict upon you the last refinement of cruelty, of raising hopes every morning which they disappoint every night. Only your friends can do that for you, and if there is greater bitterness now, is it not perhaps that they feel they are entitled to say, "We expected nothing from the Tory Party in this country. They gave us the White Paper in 1938 and 1939. But for their restrictions on immigration at that time, hundreds of thousands of people might have escaped from Europe in time before ever the war occurred." They did not look to them for help, they looked to us for help, they looked to you for help, and you promised them help. You make people desperate in that way. If you drive them to despair, it is not really enough, after that, merely to rub your hands in sanctimonious horror and indignation at the insane, desperate things that they then do.
I apologise to the House for speaking with some warmth. I think perhaps I ought not to have done it; I had no intention of doing it. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in his own approach to it today. Certainly, let us try to be constructive now; let us deal with the difficulties as they are, and see what is our way out. But I think I was entitled to show that this overshadowing horror and condemnation and sense of guilt with which the Debate started ought to that extent, at any rate, to be mitigated.
Well, now, this proposal. What was it that they did? We hear now that this scheme, or something very like it, was prepared long ago, before the Government came into office at all. We hear

from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) that this scheme was presented to the Anglo-American Committee and rejected by them. You have the situation now when one joint Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry unanimously rejects what the next joint Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry unanimously accepts. That is the situation. Now the right hon. Gentleman is surprised that people find that there is something wrong with it. Everybody knew there were things wrong with it; that is why they rejected it. Let us try to see what it is that makes it difficult to regard this as a solution. I say at once that I am not looking at it, or judging it, as a final solution. I understand very well that it is not put forward as a final solution; it is put forward as an interim, transitional solution—not transitional to anything stated or known or envisaged, but because at this moment we cannot deal in absolutes or in finalities, but only in transitional phases, seeking to deal with the immediate difficulties on your doorstep. If I criticise the scheme at all, I do it only from that point of view. I am not blaming the Government because this scheme is not the final scheme. I know they did not intend it, and I do not see how we could have had a final scheme put forward in this way at this moment.
I say there are three fatal defects in it. The first fatal defect is that it does not. deal with the 100,000 who, everybody knows, must go into Palestine. It is quite true that the scheme says that they shall go in within 12 months; but within 12 months from what? Does it mean 12 months from the day on which this scheme comes into operation, and what day is that? Nobody knows. So it is 12 months from an unspecified date—indeed, within 12 months that may never occur at all, because what do the Government say about it? The Government say that this scheme can work with the acquiescence of both parties, and we are to have a conference to see if we can get the acquiescence of both parties. Yet the Government have already been told that one party will not come. I hope I am wrong about that, but I thought the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine had said that they would not come and would not discuss with the Jews the future of Palestine. If they have not said that, so


much the better and they will come, but I thought they said they would not come.
However, suppose they do come. Their view has always been that Palestine cannot take more Jewish immigrants. That was their case in 1938; that was the case to which Mr. Neville Chamberlain's Government yielded. I say yielded not because of its merit, not because of its right, but yielded to force, yielded to violence. Suppose they still say so. What will the Government do then about this 100,000—not about the scheme, but about the 100,000? Are you not still saying— and if you are not, please make it clear, because it is most important—at the moment it looks as if you are still saying that the 100,000 will come in within 12 months of the day when the Arabs agree to let them in. The Lord President said within 12 months from the day on which the scheme comes into operation. It is only the White Paper with one remove. I doubt very much whether that was the Government's intention, but certainly that is what the scheme says, and I appeal to the Government to remove that one, at any rate, of the three fatal defects—that it does not deal with the fate of the 100,000 whose ultimate fate can only be the one agreed unanimously by everybody. If they are to go in, if you know they are to go in, say that they are to go in and give a time limit when the thing is to begin. Do not make it part of the lesser of your transitional measures. It cannot be part, because it does not depend on them.
What is the second fatal decision? I heard the Lord President say—I was glad to hear him say it, and I hope he is right —that virtually this leaves the control of immigration in the hands of the separate provinces; that although it is actually exercised by the central Government in the sense that it is the central Government which issues the certificates, the central Government will act only on the advice of the provinces. The province is to determine the economic absorptive capacity, and the central Government have only to see that the economic absorptive capacity is not exceeded.
That sounds very plausible, and if there were no history in this matter it might be accepted. But, as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said, until 1938 the economic absorptive capacity was the test, and the Agency determined how many they could economically

absorb. Having decided how many they could economically absorb, they went to the High Commissioner, precisely as they will have to do under this scheme, and he said, "No." I think there was one occasion on which he said that 60 per cent. of certificates could be absorbed. That was in the days when, as I say, the economic absorptive capacity was the test, and that was exceptional—in most years they got 10, 15 or 20 per cent. When the High Commissioner, to whom this power is reserved, under this scheme, considers whether he will agree with the Jewish province when it says, "We can take so many, give us so many certificates," will he be advised by his Council, on which the Arabs will have equal representation with the Jews, or will he act in this matter without anybody's advice? If he is going to act on the advice of the Council on which the Arabs are present, look what opportunities for friction and delay are introduced. It may very well be that as a result of a long inquiry and, perhaps, an appeal to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations, the province may ultimately get its way. But, by that time, two or three years will have been wasted, and they will always be behind the economic absorptive capacity. Why in the world, if the President of the Board of Trade was right, if the issue of certificates by the central Government is a mere formality, if they will be issued whenever the province says it can do with them—if that is the position, what is the point of reserving it to the central Government at all? Why not say, plainly, and put the matter beyond doubt, that the provinces will be able to control their own immigration, without anybody's fear or check?
I hope I am not speaking for too long —[HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] The third thing which I think is a fatal defect in this transitional measure is this. Economic absorptive capacity, yes, but for what? For the creation of a National Home, and the admission of some hundreds of thousands of people for whom there is no other place? That cannot be done in a too limited area, and we cannot take anybody else's land with which to-do that. It is always asked, "Why do the Jews want to take something where somebody else lives? Why cannot they go where there is nobody, and build it up themselves?" That is precisely what they have been doing since 1917. Nearly


all the land on which they live is land which they reclaimed from malarial swamp and desert. When it is said that they have great capital behind them with which to do that, it should be remembered that it is the pennies and shillings of the poor from all over the world, and most of the money went into the pockets of Arab landlords, from whom the malarial swamps were obtained in the first place. They did nothing with their money, but spend it in Cairo and Haifa.
To reclaim waste land is precisely what we are prepared to do now. There is no need to take any Arab land at all. There is the Negeb, in the South, which is only a desert, but what does the scheme say about that? Nobody knows whether it will ever be cultivable or not. That is what they said of Palestine in 1917. The Jews might be wrong, the Zionists might be wrong, the Agency might be wrong. They say they can cultivate it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) asked a Question the other day. He wanted to know whether any British technical experts had examined the scheme. He was told, "No." I do not know what deduction he draws from that, but the deduction I draw is that the Administration have not been interested in it for 25 years. Otherwise, they would have had technical experts examining it long ago. I suppose British experts will always be right, and the others will always be wrong. But, supposing the technical experts are all wrong, then nothing would be given away. All we say is, "Give us this desert, and we shall try to make it blossom, as we made the Vale of Jezreel blossom. We will take our despised and rejected, we will take our survivors, we will take the victims that no one else wants, and put them in the desert and make it their flower of civilisation, as we have made Palestine in the last 25 years." Why keep cavilling? What is the object of keeping that in abeyance? What is it hoped to gain? Is it to be another apple of discord to throw between Arab and Jew? Give it to us now, and let us make it flourish.

Dr. Morgan: May I ask my hon. Friend a question? He is very fervent, and impresses the House a great deal. But he is talking of the ultimate success of the scheme. Suppose the 100,000 are taken to the desert and they

fail. On whom then would the responsibility fall for the care and comfort of these people dying in the desert?

An Hon. Member: Not on the Arabs.

Mr. Silverman: It will fall on those who bear it now.

Dr. Morgan: On the 100,000?

Mr. Silverman: The 100,000 are dying all over Europe in concentration camps. I do not want to quarrel with the hon. Member. I am not suggesting that they should go to the desert anyhow. There are places for the 100,000, but we have the opportunity of developing the desert, and no one else wants to develop it. I say that it is a fatal defect in the scheme to keep that out, as though we wanted something to play with later on, as a source of further trouble. We are asked to take the Jews to some other place which is not cultivated, and which is not someone else's land and there are 2,000 miles of desert which we think we could make live and flourish. Why keep it out of the scheme? If these three things were put right we would not have a final solution—but who can deal with final solutions in this matter, or indeed, in any other matter? We would be able to deal with the immediate exigencies of the situation, and I doubt whether anybody would take the responsibility then of saying, "We will have nothing whatever to do with it, and will not talk of it." Are these the matters that are standing between this country and America? I do not know. If there are others, and more serious matters, let us know what they are. But if these, or any of them, are things which stand in the way, they are things which could be put right. I hope the Government will put them right. If they put them forward as a basis of discussion, let us discuss them now, and see if we cannot improve the situation.
I am not one of those who take a negative or pessimistic view about the relation of Jews or Arabs, either in Palestine or the Middle East. They are kindred peoples. It is not possible for an Arab to be an anti-Semite. He is a Semite. His fears are understandable enough, but his main fear is that the Jews are nothing but the spearhead of European economic, imperialist, domination. He thinks that behind the Jews comes a wave of exploiting financial


interests. It is not so. I would like to read a few words of a description given in 1936 by the Lord President of the Council of what he saw in Palestine. There have been a lot of quotations and reminders. I beg my right hon. Friend to believe me when I say that I do not read this by way of reproach. On the contrary, one is grateful for it. But if it was true in 1936, it is still true. Let me read it. Speaking in the House of Commons he said:
I have seen these Jewish agricultural settlements.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) has said that the Jewish National Home had to be mainly industrial, showing a complete failure to understand what the whole thing is about.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to misrepresent what my right hon. Friend said. His argument was that as a very large part of the economy was likely to be industrial it added to the argument that the absorptive capacity was greater than might otherwise appear. I do not think my right hon. Friend wished to imply that it should be purely industrial, and I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to misinterpret him.

Mr. Silverman: I do not think there is any quarrel between us, and I quite accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. The important thing is the way the right hon. Gentleman put it. He regarded it as being mainly industrial. It is mainly nothing of the kind. The great need of the Jews as a people was to be reunited to land. We had had no Jewish peasantry for 2,000 years, and the effect of that on the Jewish ethos has been plain for anyone to see. The main task of the Zionists in the early days was to create a Jewish peasantry. It is the one thing they most successfully did in Palestine. Of all the things they did in Palestine, it is not the new industries, it is not the light industries of all kinds—there is a good deal of it now, and very creditable it is—that has been the main achievement; it has been the agricultural achievement. Here is the Lord President's description of it:
I have seen these Jewish settlements. I wish the hon. Member for West Fife had seen them"—

I do not know why that hon. Member in particular—
They are one of the most wonderful demonstrations of the moral capacity of the human race in the whole of the civilised world. I have been to Russia also but, as as a moral proposition, it is a finer thing than is happening in any part of Russia, though there is a good case to be made of many happenings in that country. Here are colonies in which people are working on a voluntary cooperative basis with no element of dictatorship or compulsion behind them, actually reclaiming soil hitherto unfertilised and untillable and making it productive and doing it for their keep or for remittances to dependant relatives in Europe, or one or two allowances in kind, They are doing it for no money wage at all. It is being done not as a mere capitalist exploiting business, but directly in association with and under the control of the great Jewish trade union organisation, the Jewish Federation ox Labour "—
most of whose leaders are now in concentration camps in Palestine.
I have seen these fine young people, coming from various countries where they have been persecuted and some from the British Dominions, some from Russia—Russia is about the most difficult, perhaps, of any-country for letting them go—I have eaten their numble food with them at their table and have witnessed their fine morale. I came back with a humble feeling that I should like to give up this business of House of Commons and politics and join them in the clean, healthy life that they are leading.
He goes on:
I came back—but I felt like it, and so would any decent Member of this House feel like it. It is one of the most wonderful manifestations in the world. When I think of the splendid young people happily working in a cooperative and communal spirit for the building up of a national home subjected to brutal murders and shootings, I feel indignant about this crude and bloody butting into one of the finest moral efforts in the history of mankind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 19th June, 1936; Vol. 313, c. 1386–7.]
All that we are asking, in more tragic days than the days of 1936, is to continue that moral effort.

Mr. Keeling: I wonder if the hon. Member would clear up one point? I did not wish to interrupt the flow of his eloquent speech, but I would be glad if he would answer this: He said that those who sur-vived the German massacres did so in spite of us. What had it to do with us? I cannot think that he wants to cast a slur either on this House or on the British nation. Even if the doors of Palestine had been wide open before the war, it would not have been possible for more than a very small proportion of the millions


of Jews on the Continent to go to Palestine. How can we be held responsible for the massacres?

Mr. Silverman: I thought I had made my meaning clear, but if I did not, I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me this opportunity. I meant, in spite of our helplessness, in spite of our inability to help in the exigencies of the war as it then was.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Pickthorn: I hope that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) will not think me impertinent if I begin by confirming what he has just said. I, like my hon. Friend in front of me, noticed the ambiguity of the words he used. I was in no doubt whatever that what he meant was what he has just explained but I think my hon. Friend did the House a service in getting that plain in HANSARD. There are one or two matters in which I find myself in some agreement with the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. There may be more than two matters in which I find myself in some disagreement with him. One was in his commendation of the suggestion of the President of the Board of Trade that we ought to avoid what the right hon. and learned Gentleman called arguments of partisanship. I am not at all sure that that is good advice in these Debates.
These Debates are almost the most difficult of all the various Debates which this House conducts, I am not at all sure that the hon. Member is right. I disagreed with him, in approving the recommendation he received from the Front Bench. I rather agreed with him in his practice, because his speech was, I thought, a very partisan speech, in both the obvious senses of partisanship. He was very partisan from the point of view of the disagreement between those who care most about Arab interests and those who care most about Zionist interests in this matter. I thought him extremely partisan also in reference to the divisions of this House. The hon. Member spoke of expecting nothing from the Tory Party in this matter. I have always been anti-Zionist and have never disguised it. I was an almost pre-natal anti-political Zionist. I was concerned with the matter in 1918, after the Balfour Declaration had been issued, but before

the thing had been generally accepted and interpreted and become a permanent establishment. I thought it was a mistake. I still think it is a mistake. But at any rate, what is not fair to say is that it owed nothing to the Tories, because from the time of Arthur Balfour onwards it has owed a great deal to Tories, and I think that what the hon. Member said was an unfair piece of partisanship.

Mr. S. Silverman: If the hon. Member will allow me, I would like to explain, as I am anxious not to say more than I meant. What I was getting at was that the closing of the doors in 1938, which I regard as the beginning of most of this-misery, was the act of the Tory Government of that day, Mr. Neville Chamberlain's Government, which was opposed then and subsequently by my party— and by some Conservatives too.

Mr. Pickthorn: The hon. Gentleman makes my next point very exactly. He regards the stoppage of Jewish Zionist immigration in 1938 as the beginning of all this tragedy. A good deal had happened before that. The Arab Higher Committee had been treated in a way in which the Jewish Agency has not been treated now. I have forgotten how many Arabs had been executed for carrying arms. The tragedy or tragedies did begin before that. I do not blame the hon. Gentleman opposite for seeing one of these tragedies and not seeing so plainly the other of these tragedies; nor do I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Bench this afternoon that, there being hon. Gentlemen who have that natural prejudice in this House, they ought not to make that natural prejudice plain. What I suggest is that the Debate is made extremely difficult because there are not in this House any hon. Members who have the opposite natural prejudice. It may be thought that I have. I feel sure I have not. I do not wish to go into an analysis of my own character. That is generally of no great interest to others. I feel fairly clear that I have not that prejudice. I do not feel I have any prejudice against Jews and I am quite sure I have not the Arab prejudice in favour of the Arabs. I am quite sure I cannot speak for that side of this case in the way in which the other side of this case can be spoken for.
Therefore, Sir, I am not at all sure that the real danger to these Debates is excess of partisanship, at any rate on one of the two sides. I am not at all sure that we ought not, some of us, to speak in a more partisan way than we do. I would support that again with something which was said by the hon. Gentleman towards the end of his speech. He told us that this new plan might be quite acceptable if three things were altered. I have no authority to speak for Palestinian Arabs but I cannot but believe that those are the three things which in the whole of the proposals now set up seem to them to be what really matters. If only there were to be 100,000 more Zionist immigrants at once, said the hon. Gentleman. Secondly, if only the Zionists were to decide what is the economic absorptive capacity for the future. Thirdly, if only they are to control the Negeb. I quite see that from his point of view if these "if onlys" were adjusted, then everything would be highly tolerable. What I cannot understand—or at least I can understand it but I cannot understand how the rest of us should let it go uncorrected or unquestioned—is that any British Member of Parliament should think that those are small "if onlys" to be put into the proposed arrangement.

Mr. S. Silverman: I rather gathered from the President of the Board of Trade that they were very small "if onlys." I gathered from him that it was intended that the 100,000 should go, that it was intended that the province should control immigration, and that the Negeb was a desert that nobody else wanted.

Mr. Pickthorn: I gathered all that from what the hon. Gentleman said, and I think I put my comment fairly. I do not mind being interrupted but it tends to make me long. I have a good many things I would like to say but I have not got the thing laid out properly before me. In the course of my last remarks I used the term. "economic absorptive capacity." I venture to comment upon those words. I am sorry, though I do not complain, that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is not here. I never thought that that phrase was one of his happiest and I do not think that the conception which that phrase is meant to enshrine is really very helpful. If in Palestine all control of power

and electricity is in one hand in one monopoly hand, if there is one of the two communities with, from a local point of view, almost infinite command of capital—whether that capital is collected in hundreds of thousands of dollars or collected in dimes makes no odds—if there are those two things, then the economic absorptive capacity is whatever those persons having those powers, and most of all, if besides that they have power to control tariffs, then the economic absorptive capacity is highly manageable and largely at the mercy of the persons in that position. Therefore, to tell the already settled population, to tell the indigenous population, that they need not worry about these people coming in because the influx is not going to be above a ceiling, a level, fixed by the economic absorptive capacity, is, I submit, really quite useless by way of meeting their fears.
I venture to make one or two other comments on the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. First of all, there is the point about the Mandate. I do not know if you have noticed, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I think this is the first full-scale Debate in this Parliament in which we have not had from the other side boasting about the "mandate" in the other sense of the word. I think in every other full-scale Debate, every Second Reading Debate and every other general Debate on policy in this Session so far, I think every time we have been told, "It is all right. We have got a mandate." Now, this is a matter upon which the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have conspicuously not got a mandate. I do not want to go further into that at the moment because I think the thing has been done sufficiently; but I think it fair to say, and I think it even fair to repeat, that doubtless there would have been a horribly difficult, probably a melodramatic, situation in Palestine now, whoever was in office; but this particular horror, this particular melodrama, which now is there, is considerably a result of the irresponsible levity with which the party opposite for years has treated this subject and has used it as one of the ladders to the eminence in which right hon. Gentlemen now find themselves.
I wish now to say a word about the Mandate in the other sense. There is not time to go into the history of that Mandate or to try to expound what seem to me to be the law and the equity of it. I will


say one thing not at all by way of criticism of my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench but just to show how difficult it is. I think I am right in saying he made a great error of fact and I think I am right in saying nobody noticed. I refer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). He talked of the interpretation which he put upon a National Home in Palestine, I think in 1922.

Hon. Members: 1923.

Mr. Stakes: Cmd. Paper 1700.

Mr. Pickthorn: The interpretation was earlier than that, surely. The point I am trying to put—I do not want to argue about the exact date—is that the function of trying to control Palestine in a particular way and with a particular interpretation was being performed for a long time before the Mandate came into existence. The Mandate did not come into existence —I think I am remembering rightly—until 1923. So it is very easy to remember the way the thing happened wrongly, very easy to think that this or that is the result of something else when really the events came in the reverse order. In view of that, and in view of the relationship between the Mandate and the League of Nations, which has now long gone, and the relationship between the Mandate now and the United Nations, which has hardly yet come—I do not know which one of us who uses the words "United Nations" with any consciousness of what those words used to mean really can attach very much meaning to the relationship between the "United" Nations and the Mandate —in view of these things I do not think too much stress should be laid upon the Mandate.
I thought my right hon. Friend was a little unfair when he talked about the pro-German party in Iraq. There are other things to be said about that. There were pro-Germans in many countries, not only in Arab countries, and not all has been said about Iraq. We were never told about the offers made by the Iraqi Government to lend us division at the moment when no one else in the world was prepared to lend us any divisions. I think that the whole argument about more or less help from one side or the other, this is really not the time to evaluate that, if such things are quantitively evaluable,

and I suggest that all that had much better be left out.
I now come, in the main, to the remarks made by the Lord President of the Council yesterday, and, especially, I want to refer to the White Paper which was issued on acts of violence, and I hope we may have some answers to some questions about it when somebody winds up for us tonight. Look at page 2 and see about the Hagana being a whole-time military organisation and so on. What I want to ask is this. If you look at the Mandate to see what is the constitution and function of the Agency, you will see that the constitution and function of the Agency are to act in cooperation with the Mandatory Power in certain connections, and I would like to ask the Government whether this Government has considered, not this minute but in the course of the last 12 months, whether the Jewish Agency, really having this sort of relationship to an Army which has become this sort of Army, could really continue to go on being the appropriate body for the functions for which it was intended. There was a time when the Arab Higher Committee was clearly not appropriate, from our point of view, for its functions, and it was removed to the Seychelles.

Mr. Janner: Would the hon. Gentleman tell the House exactly where in the Mandate the Arab Higher Committee were mentioned for the purposes of cooperation?

Mr. Pickthorn: I never said that the Arab Higher Committee was mentioned for the purposes of cooperation. If I say something ambiguous, I am quite willing to give way, but I gave no indication of anything of the sort. The Jewish Agency is in the Mandate, and it is made quite clear what sort of a body it is intended to be, and, therefore, the argument is all the stronger when it became, as it seems to me quite clear it did become some time ago, inappropriate and had fallen out of step with the prescribed functions, therefore. His Majesty's Government ought to have considered the question of its continued validity.
I should like to ask some questions about the telegrams, especially the ones beginning on page 4. I should have hesitated to ask questions about the telegrams had it not been for the speech yesterday of the hon. Member for East


Coventry (Mr. Grossman). I am sorry he is not here, and I am sorry I have not warned him, but, in this kind of Debate, one simply cannot warn everybody to whom one may be going to refer. That speech, and the glosses he put on the telegrams and on the relationship between the Hagana and British Military Intelligence, did seem to me to make it necessary that certain specific questions should be asked.

An Hon. Member: Except that they were not glosses.

Mr. Pickthorn: I try to keep my vocabulary precise, and I trust my meaning is clear, but if gloss is not suitable any other word will do, "remark" or "comment." When we read, in these telegrams, "To London," who is London? What does London mean? Presumably it was not just addressed to London and left to some clerk in the telegraph office to find out whom it most concerned. I think we ought to be told. Now, Telegram No. 2. Who is Hayyim? If His Majesty's Government know, I am sure they should tell us; if they think they know, I think they should tell us.
I turn to this new official plan. I believe that what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne said of his three "if onlys" really goes very far to destroy that plan. I am quite certain that neither that plan nor any other will do, unless you persuade the Arabs very early on that you are consulting them about it. You must not treat the Arabs as you treat the well-to-do or possessing or official classes of this country. We are used to the insolence of office—[Interruption]— to promises that there shall be full and complete consultation, with everybody allowed to make proposals and comments and justifications, and then the matters concerned are taken from one proprietor or authority to another authority, and consultation is found to have meant nothing of the sort. We are used to that, but that is not the way we are entitled to treat any but our fellow subjects, and I would remind right hon. Gentlemen opposite to consider what consultation should really mean if this plan is to be made to work; I think that with every one of these plans that have been produced, I have found it unlikely that they would do much good; with every one, I have done my best to say nothing to make it more difficult and done my

infinitesimal best to help, and no one would be more delighted than I if there proved to be a chance of making this one work; but I am sure there is absolutely or nearly no chance of working it, and less and less even now, unless you try to consult the Arabs, and not to tell them first that you have had all sorts of deals with the Zionists, as has happened often and on from 1917, and then that you have had all sorts of deals with the Americans, and then thirdly say "Now we ask the Arabs to come in." Do persuade them that they are, at least, one of the primary, and I think they ought to be the primary, persons to be consulted before any decision is made on their country's fate or any new attempt made to get some new thing going. Unless that is done, I am certain there is no right to hope for cooperation from that side.
Lastly, but for a peroration which 1 did write out, otherwise lastly, I will say this. I think in all the Debates on this matter in which I have spoken, even in all I have attended, either I or somebody else a close friend, has said one thing over and over again, and now I am delighted to find that, everyone says it; but honestly, once were almost regarded as anti-Semitic when we said what we did, that was, if you want the Jews to be nicely treated, you must treat them nicely. You must not use the force of His Majesty's arms to compel other people to do for the Jews what you are unwilling yourself to do for them. There is only one hope of anything like peace in Palestine in the next 100 years—and I do not put that hope very high—that there shall be so many other places to which Jews can go, and be fairly treated, that the indigenous population which has been there for many centuries does not feel it is threatened with being swamped by these people being brought in. I am quite sure that is the only way it can be done. I have always pressed that in our own country, and that we should persuade the Dominions so far as it can usefully be done, the Colonies, and every country with which we are on friendly terms, to try and work to that end.
I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite, who take the extreme opposite view to mine and who must have found it almost intolerable to listen to me, to consider very carefully whether, if they push their argu-


ments too far, they are not going to land us in an even more hopeless situation than we have been in yet. I cannot find my reference now, but I promise that it is true. One is from Dr. Weizmann in his evidence to the Anglo-American Committee the other day, and I will use that one. I shall get the words wrong, but I promise I am not cheating. Dr. Weizmann talks of the growing anti-Semitism in Tunisia and the Near East. The World Jewish Alliance, the other day, spoke of the same thing in its pamphlet. What is going to happen if we have this extraordinary paradox, that violent outrage in Palestine appears to compel His Britannic Majesty to use armed force in order to compel the indigenous population in Palestine to take in many more Jews than it wants to? That is the proposal. If that happens, what is going to be the reaction upon the other people in the Near and Middle East and in North Africa -where there are large Jewish populations? I do not see any answer to the question which can make it moral or make it, in the interest of the Jews, desirable, that the forces of our country should be used to compel the settled society of Palestine to accept an immigration over which it has no control.
I am quite sure that, like most very difficult questions, this is in the end a simple question, and that that is the simple question.

6.53 p.m.

Mr. Wilkes(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central): I intervene in this Debate as an ordinary back bench Member who, by the fortunes of war, was enabled to work for some considerable months during 1943 in the offices of the Palestine administration. I do so with a great deal of reluctance, and I had hoped that the arguments that I am about to put forward would have been made by others than myself. I can only speak as a back bench Member of the Labour party. We have heard today a great deal of the wide, general problem, and I wish to ask certain questions—I think they are pertinent questions—about the operations which are now proceeding and, also, to deal with the general background in the concluding portion of my speech.
As a preliminary, I would say that I also happened to be in Greece during the operations which were carried out there.

I watched the British troops enter the country and, from the hills, I saw the first Commandos approaching the southern Peloponnesus. I saw there the immense burden which a complicated political situation imposes upon military commanders who are, usually, quite unfitted to bear this burden for, in all conscience, they have enough to worry about. In dealing with the present movements of troops and the operations now proceeding, I would reinforce the plea made yesterday in this House that we should send a Cabinet Minister, or some political adviser of real Cabinet calibre, to advise the generals and the brigadiers in Palestine who are bearing such a heavy burden. Political mistakes were made in Greece by the military which cost us very dear. During the next few days when, possibly, the psychological atmosphere of Palestine and the psychological relations between the Jewish population and the British military will be fixed, perhaps, for months to come, I am most anxious that no further mistakes shall be made.
Therefore, I wish to ask, What is the object of the present military operations? Are they to track down the Irgun terrorists, or are they to disarm the Jewish population? As to which or both, we ought to be able to have a frank, full and open answer because, if the object is to disarm the Irgun and to capture the terrorists, we are not doing this in the way in which it can be achieved. But, if it is to disarm the Jewish population, then let me say at once, bearing in mind the fact that between 1936 and 1939 1,000 Jews were killed by Arab terrorists and that His Majesty's Government, quite properly, are committed by reasons of a British military mission in Cairo to re-equipping and rearming the Egyptian Army, and committed also, again quite properly, to arming, training and officering the 16,000 of the Arab Legion in Transjordan, that, if it is the disarmament of the Jewish population which is the object of this operation, it ought to be made clear that this disarmament in Palestine is going to be a mutual and reciprocal operation and that the Arabs there will also be disarmed. But if it is to disarm and to capture the Irgun terrorists, I should like to put the following questions to the Government and to have an answer to them tonight. The Irgun represents a right wing, Fascist, terrorist, brutal, murdering


organisation controlled by a terrorist and Fascist Right Wing party. When the Irgun in June and July—

Mr. Pickthorn: As this political nomenclature always rather baffles me, and as I am completely beaten by this, may I ask the hon. Gentleman what, in this connection, does "Right Wing" mean?

Mr. Wilkes: It means the completest and most contradictory orientation from what we commonly call the "Left Wing" in Palestine.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Is that really the fact? I always understood that the difference between the ordinary Jewish party in Palestine and the Revisionists had nothing to do with the economic position, but with the speed with which they wished to establish a Jewish State in Palestine—the one by violent methods and the other by gradual methods.

Mr. Wilkes: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not expect me to go into details of the philosophies and doctrines held by the different political parties. I would say this, however. In addition to the general question of the pace of development in Palestine, there has always been a very great difference between nationalistic and non-nationalistic outlook, in the exclusively racial and aggressive outlook of the Irgun which is contrasted very definitely with the much more international and tolerant outlook of groups which I, in my nomenclature, would place upon the Left. I do not wish to pursue that matter, and if "Right Wing" is unpleasant to hon. Members opposite, I shall withdraw the phrase and substitute "the Fascist terrorist organisation of the Irgun."
If the intention is to capture these people why, when the Jewish Agency was closed down, were the offices and headquarters of the Revisionist Party who control the Irgun left open? Why is the Revisionist Press, certainly up to 24 hours ago, allowed to go on with its aggressive, militant, racial, propaganda? When in June and July these outrages were committed, certainly in the large majority of cases by the Irgun, why were the Socialist settlements searched? Was it expected to find the Irgun in settlements organised and run by the Histadruth? Why is the only paper in Palestine now closed down, so far as my information goes, a paper

called "Haaretz," which is a Liberal paper and which, indeed, has often attacked the Jewish Agency for being too militant? I believe there are important and vital political mistakes which are now being committed in Palestine. We are giving the maximum of provocation to the most moderate elements in Palestine, and it is for this most important reason that I must ask the Government to send out political advisers, and, more especially, a Cabinet Minister, to advise the military in Palestine on the difference between a Socialist and a Fascist because, believe me, it was not often apparent to our generals and brigadiers in Greece.
With regard to the present situation in its broader aspects, the plan that has been put forward by the Government has, at least, this immense advantage. It does break the terrible circle of counter-terrorism and killing. I wish it had been put forward months ago. I think that even now with certain modifications it offers a real hope of going forward, because now at long last, 12 months after the election of a Labour Government, the phrase "restoration of law and order in Palestine" is no longer the restoration of the White Paper or the state of affairs which was condemned as illegal, so far as the Mandate was concerned, by the majority on the Permanent Mandate Commission in 1939. The phrase: "restoring law and order" has, indeed, a hollow ring if it means the restoration of a state of affairs condemned by the only authority competent to judge, and when one remembers that the White Paper meant that the Mandate was being infringed and was not being carried out. At least, we now have a break in this sombre history. At last "restoration of law and order" means a state of affairs in which this new plan can be discussed —but, I would add, discussed, I think, by responsible Jewish leaders only if three things are done. Public acceptance or discussion of this plan means a great sacrifice for the Jewish people in Palestine and it means the sacrifice of many pledges made. It means the sacrifice, very largely, of the terms of the Mandate. Whether the pledges made and the Mandate were good or bad, hardly comes into the argument, but acceptance of this plan means a real sacrifice, and I am one of those who believe that this problem in Palestine will not be settled without sacrifice by Arabs and Jews. I believe


that if we can only see one side, the solution of the Palestine problem is simple, but life and politics are not simple matters, and I believe that only by giving up 100 per cent. of Arab and Jewish aspirations will this problem ever be settled.
Yet I would add, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who made such a powerful speech, that three things are necessary before this plan can be discussed by any Jewish leader without endangering his control over the movement in relation to which he stands as a trustee. So far as this scheme is concerned, we must have some further assurance—because no assurance has yet been given—as to whether this 100,006 is dependent upon Arab consent, and as to what will happen if America refuses to come into this scheme. To enter into negotiations or to signal publicly one's assent to enter upon these negotiations, leaving this 100,000 so much in the air and so indefinite, will not be conducive to early negotiations, and I, at least— because I can speak only as an ordinary back bencher—ask for clarification of this point.
The second point concerns the Negeb. I would remind hon. Members that the Woodhead Commission in 1938 showed the way, because this Commission, which was by no means deemed a friendly one to the Jewish point of view, stated in paragraph 227 on page 106:
There are large parts of the Beer Sheba sub-district now almost entirely unoccupied which the Jews ought to begin an opportunity to develop forthwith, and that even as regards the occupied portion of the sub-district, it would be wrong to take such action as would exclude that prospect.
Therefore, I ask for a clarification as to whether the present scheme does or does not take into account the views expressed by the Woodhead Commission that the Negeb should be thrown open to Jewish colonisation.
The third point concerns this question of the economic absorptive capacity. The economic absorptive capacity of the Negeb today is nil. The economic absorptive capacity of any desert is nil. Those words mean very little. They have bedevilled the whole discussion of Palestine economics. What matters is the economic creative potential of any district. One

cannot judge that until one has, at least, seen what has been done in other parts of Palestine, where the economic absorptive capacity was deemed to be almost nil. We can only let the people go there and gradually increase as the area and scope of the agricultural operations increase. Thinking in turns of a static economic potential was the reason why, in 1939, Lord Passneld told Dr. Weizmann that Palestine was so full and there was no room to swing a cat. I have outlined the three points upon which further clarification of this plan is needed. I have outlined, too, the point about present operations which fill me with anxiety and make me wonder whether there are in Palestine today mature political heads who can direct operations to the end which we all desire, namely, the eradication of terrorists.
I conclude by saying this. We in this House heard yesterday the statement of the Lord President, that the rest of the world had to live up to its responsibility—and, indeed, the rest of the world has to. However, we know from the recent Committee that it is calculated that 500,000 people will desire to leave Europe and to enter Palestine. It is for that reason that the Negeb assumes such importance. I am perfectly willing to admit—although I am not an expert on Palestine, and have never claimed to be one—it would seem to be difficult to put 500,000 people into Palestine if the Negeb is excluded. It seemed to me that the Lord President put as an alternative the inclusion of the Negeb, that we ought to have written into the political constitutions and the minds of the population of Europe a new charter of human rights. We had such minority treaties in 1919. But Governments change and times change, and it is not possible—sometimes it is not desired— to live up to the legally constituted guaranteed rights of a minority which are guaranteed on paper. After all, what could be more sacred than the contract between the Labour Party and the Jewish people of Palestine, and the whole Zionist cause, which was passed at conferences for the last 20 years? What could be more sacred than that contract? Yet, although there are changed circumstances, it has not been possible to carry out that contract. I am afraid that legally guaranteed rights are not sufficient in the present crisis. I ask the Government to consider most


seriously in the light of the recommendations of the Woodhead Commission, whether the Negeb cannot play that role in future development in Palestine that was envisaged in 1938, in paragraph 227 of the Report.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. Hopkin Morris: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) in his speech this afternoon reminded us of the White Paper of 1922, and reminded us of the definition there of the "Jewish National Home." The right hon. Gentleman is playing a great part on this stage, as he has played on the other stages of the world, but I think he ought to have gone on to remind the House of another thing. Why was it necessary to put a definition in the White Paper of 1922? Why was it necessary for the White Paper to say, not that Palestine was to be a Jewish National Home but that there should be a Jewish National Home in Palestine; and that the admission of Jews into Palestine should be in accordance with the absorptive capacity of the country to absorb them? Why should that be necessary? That was necessary because the Balfour Declaration had already been in force for five years. There had been rioting in 1920; there had been rioting in 1921. The Balfour Declaration was not accepted by Arab opinion in the Near East.
Another interesting coincidence is that the right hon. Gentleman, in making that observation today, was making it in criticism—mild criticism, it is true—of the proposals of the Government which had the agreement of the United States prior to his own definition. While the Peace Conference was going on in Paris, the United States had sent their own Commission to the Near East. President Wilson had sent his own Commission to inquire into the whole arrangement of the land that had been subject to Turkish rule. A Report was made by the two Commissioners, both distinguished Americans, Dr. King, the President of one of their colleges, and Mr. Crane, who subsequently became American Ambassador to China. Those two men went out to inquire into the position in Palestine prior to the definition in the right hon. Gentleman's White Paper. President Wilson was in favour of the Declaration made by Mr. Balfour, as he

then was. The two Commissioners appointed by President Wilson, who went out there, were in favour of the Zionist interpretation of the Balfour Declaration. That interpretation was, without qualification, the establishment of a Jewish State; there was no talk about "Jewish National Home" in the interpretation. The interpretation was: "A Jewish State." They went out there, and in their Report they were prepared to find that a Jewish State should be established. They inquired throughout the length and breadth of the land—through Syria, the Lebanon and Iraq—and they came to this conclusion in making their Report to the United States:
We recommend serious modification of the extreme Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine a. distinctly Jewish State. The Commissioners began their study with minds predisposed in favour of Zionism, but the actual facts in Palestine, coupled with the force of the general principles proclaimed by the Allies, and accepted by the Syrians, have driven them to the recommendations they here make.
They made a series of recommendations, the recommendations being that the claim for the National Home should be modified and defined; that, if an attempt was made to establish a Jewish National Home, not a Jewish State, in Palestine, there should be placed in Palestine an adequate military force to see that it could be done. They, in 1920, defined what they meant by "an adequate military force." There is not a definition in 1946. The definition in 1920 was a force of something like 50,000 men. They made the other very interesting observation, that they found the people of Syria, Iraq and of Palestine had no desire that this country should be appointed as a Mandatory Power; that the opinion, at any rate of 60 per cent. of the population, was that the United States should be appointed the Mandatory Power. What was their recommendation? The observation in their recommendation was that it would be embarrassing, in the opinions of the two United States Commissioners, for the United States to acept the Mandate, owing to the powerful Zionist opinion among their own subjects; and they recommended to President Wilson that he-should reject the acceptance of the Mandate. We all know that the United States did not come into the League of Nations, and that the Mandate was given to this


country—indeed, more than that, this Report itself was suppressed in the United States.
Today, in 1946, after the experience we have had in the meantime, comes another offer to the United States to come in. I am delighted to see that the present Government are inducing the United States to accept this, or any other scheme. As was pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), it would be easy at this stage to criticise any scheme that was put forward; cogent reasons could be brought forward against any one of them. To my mind there are two things that are important in the present circumstances. Whatever scheme is brought forward—we hope with the agreement of the United States—and accepted should be adhered to. One of the weaknesses of the last 25 years, and one of the weaknesses attaching to the right hon. Gentleman's own definition, has been the variation in the administration. Take one test alone, the absorptive capacity of Palestine to absorb Jews. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), in his very powerful speech, referred to the argument between the Jewish Agency and the High Commissioner. It is impossible to carry on the administration of a country while placing upon the civil servants in charge the duty of determining the economic capacity of the country. Whatever the number of certificates that he agrees to issue, the Jewish Agency will say it is too few—they did so every time— and the Arab League will say it is too many—they did so every time. It is an impossible position. The right hon. Gentleman had peace from 1922 to 1929 because, curiously enough, between 1925 and 1927 there were more emigrants than immigrants in Palestine. That was the period of the world depression, and immediately the world position began to recover there were the riots of 1929.
In 1930 Lord Passfield, on behalf of the Government, issued a White Paper in which a restriction was placed upon immigration and upon land transfers. I am not interested for the moment in saying whether this was right or wrong; what I am saying is that the Government, and this applies to any Government, cannot vary their policy from year to year. In

1930 the Government of the day restricted immigration and land transfers, and the following year, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, as Prime Minister, wrote a letter to the Jewish Agency in which he said that that White Paper meant nothing of the sort and that the restrictions on land transfer and immigration should be removed. That was a variation from one to the other. Then comes the Peel Report. You can criticise the Peel Report, you can criticise partition or any scheme that can be put forward, and without agreement between the two sides no scheme can be carried out, and I therefore hope the invitations which have been sent out will be accepted both by Arabs and by Jews. But once agreement or something near to agreement has been reached, the Government should then pursue that policy without any later variations. I hope that better counsels will prevail in the United States than prevailed in 1920, for a consistent policy is the first essential in good administration.
It is a matter of great concern to world civilisation that there shall be peace in Palestine. It is an irony of events that the very land from which came the doctrine of the brotherhood of man should be today the scene of slaughter and bloodshed. Great men at all times have been interested in building up their conception of the ideal State. From Plato to Augustine, from Augustine to Dante, from Dante to Machiavelli, from Machiavelli to Bacon, Bacon to Hobbs, Hobbs to Rousseau, one after another, at different times and in different countries, all have been interested in describing and building up, if they could, a conception of the ideal State. The best description I know, however, was written in two sentences by an old Hebrew prophet:
A city where old men and old women can walk the streets with their hands leaning upon their sticks, and where the children can play in the streets thereof.
Look at the streets of Jerusalem today, or indeed of Europe. They are not safe for children to play in. I hope that as a result of this effort by the Government, and as a result of a serious attempt by both Arabs and Jews to come to an agreement, the streets of Jerusalem and of Europe shall become such that children can play on them in safety. No more important word was spoken from the Front Bench today by the right hon. Gentleman than when he said that he


agreed that no Jew should be subjected to a prohibition or compulsion to which no other man was subjected. It is the one test of liberty that Jews and other races alike can live in the same conditions in every city of Europe. That is the condition. If Europe is not safe, neither will Jerusalem be safe. If it is not safe for the Jew, neither will it be safe long for anybody else. Conditions of safety are the same for all. I wish the Government's scheme success, I hope it will have full and free consideration, and I am glad that yesterday in another place it received the blessing of two very distinguished Jews, one of whom was the first High Commissioner for Palestine. I trust some good may come out of this scheme.

7.27 p.m.

Mr. Janner: I need hardly say that I have listened with a considerable amount of interest and anxiety to what has been said in the course of this Debate, and I think it would not be proper if I did not repeat again what has already been said, that the horror and indignation of the whole of the Jewish world has gone out against the atrocious crimes which were committed recently in Jerusalem. On the other hand, I ought to say also that the expression of opinion given by the general who is supposed to be dealing with the situation in Palestine must fill with horror all those who have read the words he used. Obviously to describe all of those who have built what has been built in Palestine in such terms as "loathsome," and similar words, is going to such an extreme that no reasonable person could possibly tolerate the use of them.

Mr. Stokes: As my hon. Friend is raising the question of General Barker, may I ask him if he has studied the second telegram on page 4 of the White Paper, and does he realise that the gentleman referred to by the name of "Hayyim" is Dr. Weitzmann?

Mr. Janner: I neither realise that nor am I prepared to accept the suggestions that have been made that these telegrams are connected officially with the Jewish Agency. I do not know what those telegrams are supposed to be, and I have heard very little to indicate exactly what they are, but I think my hon. Friend will

agree with this—I hope he is listening because perhaps it is necessary for him to hear it—if he knows what has been performed in Palestine by the Jewish settlers in the period during which the Mandate has been in operation, he will agree that the very last word that can be used about those who built that great social enterprise, and who have been praised on all sides for its success, is the word used in the general's letter.
I think we ought to go back for a moment or two and examine what really has happened in the period during which the Mandate has been in operation. We have heard that political Zionists are to be distinguished from so-called cultural Zionists. What nonsense. The Declaration was sent to the Zionist Federation by Balfour. Balfour declared himself a Zionist. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has declared himself such, and nearly everybody who has spoken in favour of the Jewish National Home, on all sides of the House, has declared himself a Zionist; quite rightly.
The purpose of Zionism was not only to deal with the question of settling persecuted Jews. There is a misunderstanding on this point. The idea of the Zionist movement, which was inaugurated by Herzl, was to deal, once for all, with the homelessness of the Jewish people—an entirely different matter. The homelessness of the people is its tragedy, and Herzl conceived the idea that there should be a Zionist movement which should have as its object the re-creation of the Jewish National Home; and the only land in which that could be done, obviously, was that to which the Jewish people had been turning their eyes for so many generations. It was mainly desert then, it is true. It was practically useless. The Arabs inhabiting Palestine at that time were under Turkish rule. Some people talk glibly about the Arabs giving something away. It is not a question at all of what the Arabs were giving. It was a question of somebody buying land in a country which was practically unused, in which some hundreds of thousands of people were living, it is true, but in which the number of the population was never increasing, in which disease was rife. It was a question of their taking over a land which was practically devoid of any cultivation. Oh, yes, my hon. Friend may smile—

Mr. Stokes: It is not possible for nobody to be there and for disease to be rife, at the same time.

Mr. Janner: Perhaps the hon. Member can possibly imagine that some people can die of disease in a land and that there can be disease rife among other people who are not dying. He knows the conditions that prevailed there. When the Balfour Declaration was given it was given in order that the Jewish people might create a National Home of Palestine. They proceeded to do it, and they did it well. They recovered from the desert land which enables the 600,000 who are there now to live in comparative comfort. They provided conditions which enabled the Arab population in the land to increase. They swept disease from the areas which they were cultivating, and this benefited Jew and Arab alike. I cannot understand why a distinction is not made, when this matter is under discussion, between the Arab politicians who are mainly outside Palestine—and some who are within the boundaries of Palestine—and the Palestinian Arabs as a whole themselves.
Let me give the House a quotation from a statement made when a new Jewish colony was being created to commemorate the name of a great man who had fallen in the course of this war, Brigadier Kisch. A striking feature of the inaugural ceremony, only a few days ago, was the appearance of a delegation of Arab elders from the adjoining village of Mader, headed by the Mukhtar, Ibrahim Altayb, who welcomed the Jewish ex-soldier settlers, saying:
I nave searched history and have failed to find any cause of enmity between the sons of Ishmail and Isaac, both of whom are sons of Abraham.
It was only intriguers, he added, who sought to sow discord between the peoples, and he expressed the hope that the present clouds would disperse, and that a peaceful time for all would soon begin. This took place almost at the present time. It takes place at a meeting between Jew and Arab who are living together in amity in Palestine. In that country there was a strike recently. Jew and Arab together entered into that strike, without any difference between themselves. I should like to ask the Government, my right hon. Friends, to take into consideration the fact that, in the main, the Arab working population, in Palestine

itself, have been quite agreeable to the development of the Jewish National Home there; and that it is a question of preventing those who are outside from fomenting agitations, and, by such prevention, bringing peace and harmony within the boundaries of that country.
Now, the terms of the Balfour Declaration were clear. I am not prepared to accept the suggestions, which legalistic quibbles introduce into this matter, at all. I am sure, as the Peel Committee said, that it was understood at the time under the Mandate accepted by 52 nations, that, ultimately, there would be a Jewish State in Palestine. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is a matter of opinion."] It was stated in the Peel Report, and if my hon. Friend wants chapter and verse, I have it here. Subsequently, there were quibbles about that. I want my hon. Friends to understand that it is essential that there should be such a State. I think that the House should understand that a State is essential for many reasons—that the regulation of immigration, for example, should be within the competence of that State. It is perfectly clear that the question of the number of people who should be accommodated in that Jewish Palestine Home must be decided by the people of the Home itself. Why, today there is actually a shipload of people just outside Palestine who have escaped from the horrors of Europe and who have not been allowed to land in Palestine. I should like to bring the attention of the House back to 1939, when that pernicious White Paper was introduced, and when Members on all sides of this House strongly and stoutly condemned the suggestion that the proposal that Palestine, insofar as the immigration of Jews was concerned, was to have a closed door after a certain time. I should like to read —I think it is rather topical at the present moment—what was written by my own opponent in the recent Election, Mr. Nicolson, who voted against his Government on that White Paper. He was writing about what had happened in Palestine, he said this:
This ideal, under the prophetic leadership of Chaim Weizmann, had almost attained reality. The great work went forward with unfaltering efficiency; all that faltered was the willpower of His Majesty's Government. That aluminium instrument has buckled at the moment of Jewry's greatest need and misery. There were few of us on Monday


night who listened to the tragic speeches of Mr. James Rothschild or Mr. Noel-Baker whose vision did not pierce beyond the gothic panelling of the Chamber and out into the stark sunlight of the Eastern Mediterranean. At that very moment we could see, those pirate steamers, crowded with 'illegal immigrants,' rolling and pitching outside the three-mile limit packed with sick and half-starved refugees, who strained their eyes toward the dim outlines of the promised land. Fear, cruelty, hatred and horror lay behind them; extreme squalor and misery was their immediate lot; yet over there, beyond the tumbled sea, shone the amethyst contours of promise—a promise which in amicable phrases, in the very best bedside manner, was at that moment being denied them from the Treasury Bench.
That picture has become even more aggravated. The Jewish settlers in Palestine took their proper share in the war effort, and had it not been for the Jewish settlement the situation in the Middle East would have been much more critical. They played their full part in helping the Allies. I would ask my hon. Friend whether the Government will not reconsider the admission of the 100,000 people into Palestine who are waiting anxiously to get out of the desperate position in which they are. What reason can there be for not allowing them to enter Palestine? They are not asking for work or food from anyone other than their own kith and kin. I would ask the Government to allow them to enter without delay. When the Balfour Declaration originally came out it referred to some 45,000 square miles of land. That figure was reduced later by the White Paper of 1922 to 10,000 square miles. What is the figure being reduced to now? As has been stated, the Negeb can be made fruitful. It can be made fruitful not only by the expenditure of labour and capital, but through the exercise of that good will and the ideals which inspired the building up of other parts of Palestine. It was not only a question of labour and capital, but a desire of these people to create something which made the desert bloom. In view of the fact that the Mandate is still in existence, and the declared policy of the Government is to abide by it, we should not turn aside at this stage and cut down the extent of the Jewish National Home. I ask the Government to reconsider the position, so that a full Mandatory National Home may once more be envisaged, which will be to the benefit of Palestine, to the benefit of this country and to the benefit of the whole world.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: It must be quite evident, after listening to the speech of the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Janner), that the question at issue is not merely one which concerns political and economic development of a small country for whose administration we are responsible. It is a matter raising moral and spiritual issues of the highest importance. It is no wonder, therefore, that opinions upon it cut across all political parties. To me, this is a matter of conscience, where conscience alone must direct. We have all been declaring where we stand, and for my part, speaking entirely for myself, I confess that I stand on the side of the Zionists. I have not a drop of Jewish blood in me, and I have no particular love for the Jewish people, although like others, I have many Jewish friends, whose friendships I cherish. But Zionism to me is something which is irrevocably linked with the Christian faith, with the Church of Scotland in which I was brought up. Perhaps it was that early association of ideas which caused me as a young officer at the end of the last war to be so thrilled by the Balfour Declaration when it was made public.
That action by the British Government seemed to me to be a fine and noble thing, in conformity with the faith and character of the British people. It was a dcclaration which committed the honour of this country; it undoubtedly enjoyed the almost unanimous support of the people at that time—it certainly won approval of every party in the House of Commons. I have never been able to escape from that debt of honour, and when between the wars efforts were made to whittle down the Mandate, I did everything I could in my humble way to oppose them. In the great Debate on the White Paper in 1939, which was made a matter of confidence, as a supporter of the Government, I voted against the White Paper, and had I caught the eye of Mr. Speaker I would have spoken against it in the strongest terms.
I found myself in the Lobby on that occasion with some remarkable men. There were Mr. Amery, Mr. Lloyd George, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), the junior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Herbert) and


the whole array of the Labour party, including the present leaders of this Labour Government. It is a tragedy that with the exception of those whom I have named, those right hon. Gentlemen who voted then for the honour and observance of the pledged word of England should now, as England's masters, trail that honour in the dust and ravage yet again their own solemn promises. I scarcely would have thought it possible that in a single year of office and power right hon. Gentlemen opposite could have left such a dark trail of broken pledges.
Holding these views on our obligations, I confess that I was shocked to read of the first violent measures taken by the Government against the Jewish people in Palestine. I do not for one moment challenge the right and duty of the Government to maintain order in that stricken land, and suppress by all necessary measures the violence and inexcusable outrages recently committed. I abhor these outrages, and agree that they must be stamped out and order restored. But I ask, with the greatest earnestness, whether this method is the right and only way to restore order in Palestine. Can it possibly be the right way to provide tranquility in this Holy Land, for which the whole world is responsible, and for which our country has a very special and high degree of responsibility? The present crisis in Palestine is not something which has newly happened. It is not a sudden mutiny which hard measures will quickly obliterate.
Palestine, especially since the end of the last war, has been a place of ever-increasing tension. Even the most un-instructed person must have seen that crisis—outrage and calamity were bound to be the end of it all, unless broad, swift and statesmanlike measures were taken. It is not a new problem, and the Government must have known the problem and have recognised that only drastic alterations of conditions in Palestine would prevent that tension from exploding. What the House demanded, and what the country demanded, was a clear plan, firm decision and swift action by the British Government. Instead of that, we have had a succession of delays, subterfuges and crass and unforgivable blunders, such, for example, as the most unfortunate speech of the Foreign Secretary at

the Bournemouth Conference. Even tonight the tale of delay, procrastination and misunderstanding is not finished. The proposals of the Lord President, so far as I have studied them, involve still further long delays. For example, we can do nothing until a meeting of the two sides has been called. I asked the President of the Board of Trade when he thought that would take place? He could not tell me. I ask would it be before the end of September?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): I am hopeful that it will take place in the middle of August.

Mr. Stewart: That is the first indication which we have been given, but I cannot see when these meetings will end. The delegates must consult their friends before reaching decisions. I cannot see that there will be decisions by these meetings before October, and I cannot see His Majesty's Government taking decisions upon those decisions until Christmas. Yet time, surely, is the vital factor in this business.

Mr. Scollan: The hon. Gentleman has put a point which has repeatedly been put by the critics of the Government. That is, that something in the nature of a plan and a firm policy should have been brought forward long ago, but no one is able to say what kind of plan or what kind of policy. Indeed, this is the first plan and the first policy, and it is made the subject of all kinds of criticism.

Mr. Stewart: It is the duty of the Government of this country to govern.

Mr. Scollan: This problem was here long before they came in.

Mr. Stewart: Before the Labour Government took office they had a plan. They said so. When they took office they could have carried out that plan, or the plan of the White Paper which the Coalition Government had been endeavouring to carry through, or the Anglo-American Committee's plan. They did none of those things.

Mr. Scollan: There was a complete change of circumstances in the interval.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The only change was that Labour came into office.

Mr. Stewart: I am trying to work out the time table. Nothing is to be done to relieve the tension of which I have spoken until these two parties have met, discussed, gone home, decided, and then the Government have to decide what to do. But apart from that, nothing, apparently, can be done at all effectively unless America agrees. We understand that the President of the United States has said that he does not approve of this plan. Is this another example of lack of cooperation between this Government and America? It was not very long ago that the Lord President of the Council had to go to America because there was a misunderstanding about food. It is an incredible situation that a statement should have been made yesterday, based, as the Lord President himself said, fundamentally on acceptance and agreement by America, and that within 24 hours we should be informed that America, apparently, does not agree.

Mr. Lipson: On what authority does the hon. Member base his case that America does not agree? I thought that President Truman was investigating, and had made no definite statement for or against.

Mr. Stewart: I put this question an hour ago to the President of the Board of Trade and he told me that there was no assurance that America would accept the plan. The point which I am making is that Palestine, at the moment, is a place of enormous tension, and that if this matter is delayed without special emergency measures being taking immediately—and I am going to suggest one—that tension will not be lowered, but increased. Meanwhile—and I talk with some knowledge of this matter —young Jewish men and women in Palestine know that their friends, fathers, mothers and brothers are over here in camps of one kind or another, and cannot go to their National Home. A brother of mine sailed a week or two ago from Marseilles to Haifa. He joined a ship on which there was a considerable number of Jewish refugees going to Palestine. He has told me about it. He said that when they came out into the sunshine their bare backs were covered with weals and cuts imposed upon them by the Nazi persecution. He said that it was a sickening sight, and a demoralising thing to feel that the British Govern-

ment—his Government—were the Government—which were preventing these wretched people from getting to Palestine.

Mr. Stokes: Does it not demoralise the hon. Member still more that His Majesty's Government do not accept them into this country?

Mr. Stewart: I wish that the hon. Member would be a little more responsible. Is he pressing for His Majesty's Government to introduce 100,000 Jews into this country?

Mr. Stokes: A fair proportion, certainly.

Mr. Stewart: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by a fair proportion?

Mr. Stokes: Twenty-five thousand.

Mr. Stewart: I understand that the policy of the hon. Member, and his solution of the problem, is that we should import 25,000 Jews. I ask the House: Is that going to help very much? Is that going to help at all in relieving tension in Palestine? That is the issue to which I wish to call the attention of the House. With the state of opinion as it is in Palestine now, it is quite true, as the Lord President said, that Jewish public opinion is not helping the Government in its search for those who committed the outrages. It is quite true, as the General said in his letter, that there appears to be no cooperation. I deplore that. If my advice were worth anything at all, I would strongly advise the Jews there to cooperate with the Government. But the fact is that they do not. That is a fact which the Government, I suggest, must recognise as a fact. What is it that makes the whole general community in Palestine unwilling to cooperate? It is not that they are all wild men. It is that they have seen a stoppage put upon the immigration of their friends from Europe. Let me offer a quotation to illustrate the point. It deals with the disappointment associated with that stoppage, and I believe that what makes them so bitter is reading words such as these, which were uttered by a prominent Member of this Government just a year ago:
It is morally wrong and politically indefensible to impose obstacles to the entry into Palestine now of any Jews who desire to go.


That was the Chancellor of the Exchequer only a year ago. Is it to be wondered at that these wretched people in Palestine, as well as their more wretched friends and relatives over here in Europe are utterly disappointed and desperate? That is the fact that is causing the trouble today. I do not condone it; I deplore it, but it is a fact we must face.
Therefore, the Government must now face up to this problem of the 100,000. I had said that it will take months before agreement is reached on this new plan. I say now that action must be taken on the problem of the 100,000. The Government realise that something must be done, because it was mentioned by the Lord President yesterday that he wants to get the 100,000 Jews there very quickly. But under his plan not one single person of that 100,000, will be sent and apparently not even a single certificate will be issued until the whole plan is agreed to. With the greatest respect—and I speak here with the greatest personal interest because I have some of my family in Tel Aviv now and I am very concerned about them—I ask the Government to consider, within the next day or two, making a public declaration in regard to these immigrants, and if they cannot see their way to granting 100,000 certificates, at least to agree to 50,000 certificates being issued.
I believe that that would have a remarkable effect on lowering the temperature in Palestine. I do not think—and I am kept well informed on this matter— that the temperature can be lowered otherwise and if it is not lowered this new plan will have no chance of success. I should like to see this new plan go forward not because I am particularly attracted to it—I think it has many defects —but because it is a plan. If it is pressed forward with decision by the Government it may succeed and I wish it god-speed, but the Government must create the conditions in which that success can be brought about. I suggest that there is no action which the Government can take that will bring about those conditions now other than the issuing of a substantial number of certificates.
I have just one other word to say. I ask the Government to consider this problem of Palestine as a political problem not limited to the boundaries of Palestine. The whole pacification of the Middle East is, involved. I go further. I say the

settlement of this Palestine problem is intimately linked up with our future relations with America. Having regard to the sombre, grim scene that we have seen developing in Europe in these recent months, I say we cannot risk losing the sympathy and cooperation of that great democratic people. At all costs I would endeavour to hold their sympathy and friendship. If we act now in the way that I have suggested and grant these certificates as an act of faith we may succeed.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. M. Philips Price: The Government have made a most important statement on the Palestine situation, and I do not complain that they have waited some time before they have made that statement. I think that they were right to try to bring with them, as far as they could, public opinion in the United States. The process of self-education in foreign affairs amongst our Transatlantic cousins is a slow one. We must not forget that the elections for Congress are not very far off, and, unfortunately, politics are being played at the moment. That is a cause of much of the difficulty with which we are faced. On the other hand, I hope the Government will show initiative in this matter, and not trail along behind the coat-tails of Uncle Sam. I admit that Uncle Sam is important in regard to financing much of what is in the plan, but, at the same time, having regard to the situation that exists, I hope that they will take a lead in this matter.
I have always been an opponent of partition, largely on the ground that in a country the size of Wales— and that is what Palestine is—it is difficult to create two or still more three States. But the gravity of the situation is such, the impasse so great and the outlook so menacing, that I would be ready to consider any plan which might be a solution. I have always thought that Palestine should foe a Jewish-Arab State with the Arabs in a majority because they are the original inhabitants. Just as I have opposed the extreme Zionists' view, so always have I opposed the extreme Arab view that Palestine should only be an Arab State, because we cannot have a country like Palestine, where the three great religions of the world have their roots, so populated that one race completely dominates it. There


must be a multi-racial State in Palestine, but the Arabs are entitled to the majority because they are the original inhabitants.
The time is coming too, when there will be an Arab League; in fact there is one now. I hope that the Arab League will incorporate all the Arab States of the Middle East, and I would like to see Palestine part of that League as a multi-racial State like Lebanon or Syria. If this aim is to be achieved the Jews must abandon once and for all any attempt to dominate the Arabs in Palestine and be content with a minority and a cultural home. British Governments in the past should never have allowed the Zionists to put the interpretation on "National Home for the Jews" that they have, and they are much to blame for allowing them the liberty of putting their meaning on the term. We have also allowed too long a deliberate confusing by the Zionists of the condition of the displaced Jews in Central Europe with immigration into Palestine. It is the duty of the Western Powers to do their part in these matters and then I think I know what the Arab reaction is going to be.
I think that they may be prepared to play a part in helping these poor displaced Jews in Central Europe, because all the Arab States, including Palestine, would wish to take a proportion of these persons, providing the Western Powers take the lead. Is it realised by those advocating the bringing of 100,000 Jews into Palestine that this is equivalent to asking for permission to send 8,000,000 persons into the United States of America? In proportion that is the position. What America has offered is 52,000 persons now, and not all Jews. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said just now that we must make a contribution. I agree and I say that we must shame the Americans into making a contribution, too. We must not let them lecture us, and leave us to face the situation which we have to face in Palestine.
He would be a bold and irresponsible man who would reject the Government's plan for Palestine. I have always been of the opinion that the federation idea is a possibility, particularly because it would keep the country as an economic whole. That is very important, because partition would be a counsel of despair. An Arab State in a partition would be totally uneconomic. Many Zionist colonies

on the coast between Haifa and the desert are really uneconomic now. I spent some time there last January, and I learned that most of these colonies are very much over-capitalised, and are living largely at the expense of subsidies from abroad. I got that information from Jewish experts. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) talked as if only the Jews arc making the desert blossom like a rose. I would like to inform him, if he were here, that I spent a very interesting day in the Jordan Valley, seeing what the Arabs have done. All around Jericho were irrigation canals and banana plantations. In the hill country of India I saw Arab villages where there were no landlords. The Arab peasants here farmed their own land, terracing it, planting it with figs vines and olives, and making that barren country blossom as a rose.

Dr. Segal: Does not my hon. Friend agree that this has only happened since the Zionists have come to Palestine, and that by the force of their example they have shown the Arabs the way? Is not that only one of the good effects which the Zionists have had on the economy of the country?

Mr. Price: The real reason why the Arabs were so backward was because of Turkish domination. Further, Arabs have not the same finances as the Jews and, therefore, their progress has been much slower. The feeling of both Arabs and Jews towards us is none too good. The reason is that they fear we arc in Palestine for military reasons, that we are trying to make Palesline an important strategical centre now that we are to withdraw from Egypt. I am suspicious that advice to this effect is being given to the Government. I would ask the Government to realise that the days of military occupations and strategic forces in the Middle East are over. That was all right for the 19th century, but this is the 20th century. i am well aware that we have vast oil interests in Iraq and Iran, interests in sterling oil which are vital for us. Certainly, we shall not get that sterling oil guaranteed by military forces. It can only be done by friendship with the Arab States. It can only be done by agreement, and treaties, and understanding with them

Mr. John Lewis: . By agreements with the ex-Mufti.

Mr. Price: If the Government stick to the idea that we must have military forces in Palestine to guarantee our sterling oil they will, I am certain, meet with failure. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Cross-man) in all he says, but I certainly agreed with what he said yesterday about giving notice now to the United Nations that we are not going to stay in Palestine indefinitely, that we must ask for some term to be put on our military liabilities in regard to our occupation of Palestine. Whatever the term might be, five, eight or 10 years, I think it would create a better feeling in the Arab world if we were to make a statement of that kind, which would show that we were anxious that our relations with them are based on friendship and brotherhood, and not on domination. This land of Palestine has been the scene of the passage of armies and conquerors for 4,000 years, and with the decline of the Ottoman Empire two European Powers, Britain and France, became the Mandatory Powers, and took the lead in the Arab Middle East. Under the Mandates of these two States, the Arabs have awakened to a national consciousness, and claim to be masters in their own home. The Jews have been introduced into Palestine as a disturbing element from the west, very much like the Crusaders, in the Middle Ages, were the disturbing element from the west. But the Crusaders were absorbed into the Arab world. If you go to Bethlehem today you will see Christian Arabs wearing headdresses similar to those which were worn at the time of the Crusaders. The Jews, too, can keep, in Arab surroundings, their great culture and traditions to which the world owes so much. But the lesson which some of them must learn is that they have to work with the Arab world, and not against it.
Last January I was in Damascus, where I went to the Syrian House of Commons. Over the Speaker's Chair I saw, in Arabic, a passage from the great book of the Mohammedans, the Koran, which, freely translated, runs:
The public welfare is best promoted by peaceful discussion.
If Jews and Arabs will approach the problem of Palestine from that angle there is still hope for this sorely tried land.

8.19 p.m.

Colonel Ponsonby: This Debate has ranged over all the issues which affect Palestine—moral, spiritual, sentimental, and historic. I myself feel that it is time we left ancient history behind, and looked to the future. Here is a crisis of great magnitude, and here are the Government trying hard to find a solution. For a short time I would like to say a few words about the basis on which the Government's proposed settlement of the problem is founded. It is purely economic, and is linked up with what has been mentioned several times in the Debate, namely, the limit of the economic capacity of the country to absorb a certain number of people. I will give the House only one or two figures, which are set out to some extent in the Report of the Anglo-American Committee. The country has an area of 10,000 square miles, and if one deducts the 4,000 square miles of the Negeb, which can be used possibly as a cushion in the future, there is a balance left of 6,000 square miles. As the Report of the Committee says, there is now a population of 1,765,000, of which 554,000 are Jews, and 1,061,000 are Moslems.
If one thinks of the future—and it is to the future that we must direct our attention—one finds that in 1959, even if there is no emigration or immigration of Moslems, they will be up to about 1,700,000, and if there is no immigration of Jews, a supposition which is impossible, they will be up to 664,000. At the present time there is a population of 179 to the square mile, and if one leaves out the Negeb, a population of 336 to the square mile. Let us compare those figures with the figures for two countries with which we are familiar, Wales with 8,000 square miles, and a population of 2,500,000, and Belgium with an area of 11,750 square miles, and a population of 8,250,000. Hon. Members will realise, however, that Wales derives its prosperity from its coalmining, steel, ship repairing, and so on, and that Belgium is a prosperous manufacturing country with coal, iron, zinc, lead, copper, all its prosperity deriving from mineral wealth. There is no comparison with Palestine, because, except for the Dead Sea potash, there are practically no minerals in Palestine, and no raw materials.
Therefore, we come to the problem that we find in many of the countries


which we administer of having an almost wholly agricultural country. Even then, a great deal of the country either cannot be taken into cultivation or is already cultivated. Any hon. Member who has walked, as I have done, over the Plain of Sharon and the Vale of Esdraelon will remember the crops of barley, wheat, maize, grapefruit, and so on. Practically all of that land is under cultivation. If one climbs the Hills of Ephraim and Galilee and the Mountains of Judea, one sees how bare and rocky they are; the vineyards, olive groves and fig groves arc made on terraces to hold the scanty water supply. Thus the country is almost entirely agricultural, and very much of it is either cultivated or incapable of being cultivated. Yet we are planning, or thinking of planning, to put more people into that country. When I saw the figures in the Report of the Anglo-American Committee, I wondered how it was possible for them to recommend 100,000 immigrants now, having regard to the fact that in a very few years, with the natural increase, there will be far too many people in the country.
We are, therefore, facing a very difficult problem. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) said, the Jews may develop industries and, if so, they will have to be financed from outside. There is always the possibility of that, but surely, we cannot imagine the Jewish part of Palestine merely as a huge industrial town with a few plantations outside it. When we think of this problem we must remember that there is a limit to the absorptive capacity of the country and we must remember, also, that if a country, or part of a country, is built up on industry financed from outside, it is uneconomic, and may end in failure. That is mentioned in the last paragraph on page 25 of the Anglo-American Committee's Report, where a scheme of development is referred to. The Report says:
We have in this immediate context another example of the manner in which Jewish zeal and energy are ready to outrun economic caution of the ordinary Western pattern.
The Report continues:
It is conceivable that the passionate expansion of an economic structure, upon a dubious basis of natural resources, might lead to overdevelopment on such a scale as to render it top-heavy to the point of collapse.

I do not wish to put a spanner into the machinery, but it is very important that we should all realise what will happen in the future if we try to force an increased population into what is already an over-populated agricultural country.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. Lipson: I speak as one who is deeply grieved at recent happenings in Palestine. To me it is heartbreaking that so-called Jews should have been guilty of such murderous outrages as took place in Jerusalem. I use the phrase; "so-called Jews" because there is nothing in the teachings of Judaism which could possibly justify an action of that kind. Judaism is a way of life. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace; there is no place in Judaism for murder and outrage. I say that these terrorists have done an injury to the Jew which Hitler was not able to do; he destroyed their bodies but their glory and their honour remained. These terrorists have inflicted an indelible stain on the name of the Jew and if they persist they will destroy the Jewish soul. He is no friend to the Jew who tries to justify or to condone in the slightest degree the action of these terrorists. The fact that 6,000,000 Jews have been killed by the Nazis is not the slightest justification for the murderous and treacherous attacks on British soldiers who saved the remaining Jews from a similar fate. If it had not been for Britain and the stand she took in 1940,, what would there be today of the Jewish National Home in Palestine? How many of those who vilify this country would be free to do so today if Britain had not stood firm in 1940?
It is necessary to say these things, and I should like the House to know that there-are many Jews in this country and in other lands who are and will ever remain grateful to Great Britain for what she has done. Whatever plan may be brought forward for Palestine it is a sine qua non of its success that terrorism there should end, because if gangster rule is to prevail in Palestine—and that is the danger to which that unhappy country is at present exposed—there can be no future for Palestine at all. May I say that I heartily welcome the plan which His Majesty's Government have brought forward and I think that it is to their credit that they have not been so provoked by recent happenings in Palestine


as not to bring forward a plan for dealing with the problem there. I doubt if there is any other country in the world which, if exposed to similar provocation, would have continued with its policy and have produced a plan to try and settle the Jewish problem in Palestine. I believe that this plan which has been put forward by the Government is one which is practicable and which can work, provided there is a will to work it, and I hope that both Arabs and Jews will be willing to cooperate with His Majesty's Government in an attempt to make it work. Personally, I prefer the proposals put forward in the plan to partition because these proposals do not close the door; they leave open the possibility of realising what I think most people must appreciate is the best solution in Palestine—a Palestinian state in which Jews and Arabs would cooperate.
If we were to establish partition as it was suggested by the Peel Commission, I am afraid that it would be very much more difficult in practice and much less likely to succeed than the plan now proposed. I consider that it is to be welcomed that the plan does not impose finality because the conditions under which a final settlement of the right kind can be reached are not yet established. I hope, therefore, that both Arabs and Jews will cooperate and that in particular they will agree to come to the conference which is to be called by His Majesty's Government, and that as the result of their getting together these unhappy relations which have been established between Jews and the Arabs and the Government of this country will be ended and a new and happier chapter in the story of Palestine and the Jew will be begun.
I want to emphasise what has been said by previous speakers—that the solution of the problem of Palestine cannot by itself solve the Jewish problem. I reject the policy of those who say that the Jews should leave Europe. That is not only a policy of defeatism and despair but it means the triumph of Hitlerism, for that is the policy for which Hitler stood. It would mean that although Hitler was dead the evil he did still lived after him. There-lore, I hope that the Western Powers will realise their responsibility in this matter. I cannot agree that this country will be fulfilling its responsibility if it refuses to

take in any more Jewish immigrants.. I believe that the United States Government are taking up a position which is morally indefensible when, in one breath it asks Arabs to accept 100,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine and refuses to take more than the normal quota of Jews into America. The proposed solution of the Palestine problem must be accompanied by a real effort to find homes for these displaced Jews who so badly need them; so that, at long last, Jews everywhere may enjoy the peace, the security and the equal opportunity for the full life which Jews enjoy wherever the Union Jack flies.

8.37 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): It is remarkable that we should have a two days' Debate on the question of Palestine with so little political feeling displayed, so many constructive speeches made and so much agreement as to the policy before the House. The Debate will encourage His Majesty's Government to go forward, we trust with the full cooperation of the Government of the United States, to get the conference going as quickly as possible, to reach a settlement of a matter which has baffled Governments over the last quarter of a century.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) dealt in his speech with the Mandate and the growth of the Jewish National Home, not only in respect of population, but also in respect of the development of that part of Palestine which has been occupied by the Jews. I do not think that it is yet fully realised by a number of people what has been done during the last 24 or 25 years, notwithstanding the great difficulty with which Palestine and the Palestinian Administration have been confronted. The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that the Jewish population in Palestine had increased six-fold or seven-fold whereas, as he also rightly says, the Arab population has increased by some 100 per cent. It is not only a question of population, it is a question of what has been done. I regret very much that I have not yet had an opportunity of visiting Palestine to see the result of that work but I would remind many people who criticise His Majesty's Government of the terms used by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr.Lipson)


who addressed the House in the most moving manner, as he usually does. He pointed out, as he always does point out, what the National Home owes to the British people. Others refused the Mandate when it was offered and it was the British who accepted it. Who is there in this House who will say that as far as it has been possible, taking into consideration the conflicting interests of both races, that Mandate has not been faithfully carried out? I think it has.
The right hon. Gentleman stressed the point of Anglo-American cooperation in this matter. It has been surprising to hear some of the speeches which have been made during the past two days blaming the Government for delay and vacillation. The whole of the time that was taken up from August of last year until last Friday was spent in seeking Anglo-American unity or cooperation in dealing with this very grave problem. I am hopeful, as I have already said, that we shall obtain that cooperation until the scheme has been put through. The right hon. Gentleman also talked of giving up the Mandate. He said that unless we obtained that cooperation we should name a date and put the Palestinian problem at the feet of the United Nations. The Lord President said yesterday that it is our intention, if the scheme is found acceptable, that it should be embodied in a trusteeship agreement for Palestine. In that event we shall prepare the draft of a trusteeship agreement for submission to the United Nations as soon as it is practicable, but His Majesty's Government have already made it clear that while they are anxious to place mandated territories under trusteeship agreement, their agreement to do so must naturally depend upon their being able to negotiate terms which, in their view, are generally satisfactory, and achieve the objectives of the Charter and are in the best interests of the inhabitants of the territories concerned.
We hope that the forthcoming Conference with the Arabs and the Jews will assist us in achieving the fulfilment of those conditions. It is not easy to obtain a trusteeship agreement under the trusteeship organisation which exists at the present time. There is a lot of preparatory work to be done There has to be a designation of the States directly concerned, and one can imagine that in

negotiating a trusteeship agreement for Palestine, surrounded as Palestine is by Arab States, it will not be very easy for the trustee, whether it is a single trustee or an Anglo-American trustee or, indeed, a United Nations trusteeship, unless we can get the Arabs and the Jews to come into conference, as we propose getting them to come, with a prospect of obtaining an agreement. If that agreement is obtained, there is no reason why we could not go on, as has been suggested by so many hon. and right hon. Members in the course of this discussion, and obtain a trusteeship agreement.
It is not easy to lay the Mandate at the feet of U.N.O. unless there is an organisation to take its place, and that is what we are hoping to do. I thought the right hon. Gentleman towards the end of his speech brought in a good deal of politically controversial matter, not helpful at all in obtaining American cooperation with the scheme. I thought it was, as my hon. Friend said, very mischievous, and sitting here and hearing what he said, I thought that notwithstanding his desire to obtain Anglo-American cooperation, he did his best to destroy it. Why did he bring Egypt into this discussion? He knows that at the present time negotiations are proceeding for a new agreement with Egypt. In this connection we have undertaken to withdraw British troops from Egyptian territory. We still maintain our belief that the policy we have adopted is the right policy, and the policy best calculated to secure British interests. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of strategic interests. Why, our greatest strategic safeguard in the Middle East is the friendship of its Governments and its peoples We do not intend to lose sight of this principle in Palestine, any more than in Egypt. If a solution is found that is just and right and acceptable to both peoples, we shall not allow military considerations to prevent us from adopting that principle.
We listened, as we always listen, to a very moving speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Naturally, as we expected of him, he devoted a good deal of his speech to pressing for the immediate admission of the 100,000 Jews into Palestine. His Majesty's Government have made the position quite clear. They wanted the recommendations of the


Anglo-American Committee accepted as a whole. It was felt, and indeed rightly so, that, with all that is involved in the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine, it was a burden greater than His Majesty's Government could carry. The cost involved is a very heavy cost and, indeed, as is laid down in the plan and was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Lord President, as soon as this plan comes into operation, a plan already exists for the intake of the 100,000 Jews into Palestine. If not, then it will be for His Majesty's Government to consider the whole position. That is the agreement between His Majesty's Government and, we hope, the agreement with America—

Mr. Pickthorn: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman but I really do not understand him. He said: "That is the agreement between His Majesty's Government and, we hope, somebody else." Is it an agreement or not?

Mr. Hall: That is the agreement we hope for between ourselves and the United States of America.

Mr. Pickthorn: I see, it would be an agreement if there were one, or will be if there is one?

Mr. Hall: I wish the hon. Member would not try to be funny.

Mr. Pickthorn: I am not trying to be funny and did not know the right hon. Gentleman was trying to be.

An hon. Member: He cannot help it.

Mr. Hall: Perhaps not. The hon. Member might show a little bit of the breeding of the university. My hon. Friend also dealt with the question of the scheme. I would put it to him, as to everyone who has talked of the plan, that this is a provisional plan, both in regard to the suggested central legislature, and in regard to the Negeb. It is quite open for discussion between the two parties when they meet, although it is not easy to deal with the Negeb scheme in view of the conditions which exist in the Negeb at the present time. The recommendation is that there should be a survey taken as soon as possible, because, from information we have received about the Negeb, it appears that there is very little

prospect of more than a very few people obtaining a livelihood unless there is a considerable amount of preparatory work done in the first instance. His Majesty's Government are prepared, we hope in conjunction with America, to undertake that preparatory work.

Sir William Darling: If America does not agree, I take it that His Majesty's Government will still proceed with the plan.

Mr. Hall: I have already pointed out that His Majesty's Government will have to consider the position. They just cannot tie themselves to the very huge cost which is incurred in putting a plan such as this into operation. I think that ought to be made clear.

Mr. Scollan: Do not tell us that if they cannot afford it, they cannot carry out the plan.

Sir W. Darling: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) said they would finance it themselves.

Mr. Hall: It is a matter, of course, which His Majesty's Government will have to take into full consideration. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) put a number of questions. I regret I was not here to hear his speech. He asked whether the Jewish Agency can go on, in view of its relation to the illegal army. It was made quite clear by the High Commission when the action was taken originally, that it was not taken against the Jewish Agency as such. It was taken against members of the Jewish Agency, those members who in accordance with the telegrams which are published in the White Paper, were involved in acts for which the High Commissioner thought he was justified in detaining them. There were others not in any way involved, and others whom he did not deem it necessary to detain. The hon. Member for Cambridge University put a straight question to me as to who is "Hayyim." We are of the opinion that "Hayyim" is Dr. Weizmann. But, at the same time, I would like to say that Dr. Weizmann, in accordance with the information given in the telegrams, was not in any way, and has not in any way been, involved in anything which is illegal or, indeed, in adopting anything which would lead us to think


that he was anything other than a great Zionist, and a very great friend of this country.

Mr. Pickthom: This makes it a little difficult:
It Hayyim meant us only avoid a general conflict not isolated cases,"—
cases of at least violent sabotage—
send greetings to Chill for the birth of his daughter.

Mr. Hall: That has been very carefully considered and, as far as we are concerned, as far as I am concerned, it would not involve Dr. Weizmann.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask, as I raised this point, why did he send "greetings to Chill"?

Mr. Hall: He did not.

Mr. Stokes: Well, he did.

Mr. Hall: No, he did not; we have no knowledge that he accepted the telegrams.
My hon. Friend the Member for Central Newcastle (Mr. Wilkes) asked what was the object of the present operations in Tel-Aviv, and the number of persons who have been detained. Up to 10 a.m. today, 664 suspects have been arrested, of whom some are already identified as dangerous terrorists. We had a very interesting speech from the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) yesterday. He dealt with the educational work which was being done by the Jewish Agency, and pointed out the disparity between the educational work of the Arabs and the Jews. It is true, and in the Report of the Anglo-American Committee the reasons as to the disparity are fully given. I am sure that the hon. Member has seen in the Report of that Committee the amount of money which has been spent upon the maintenance of law and order and the amount which has been spent upon education. Had it not been for that fact, not only would there have been a much greater increase in the amount spent upon education, but in that spent upon health services as well. I hope that the time will soon come when the educational standard of the Arabs will be greatly raised from what it is at the present time.
Other speakers have referred, in sympathetic terms, to the hard task which our Armed Forces, including that fine

body of men, British and Palestinian, the Palestinian Police, are carrying out, and the grievous losses they have suffered from time to time at the hands of political extremists on both sides. May I stress also, perhaps with greater emphasis than we have yet heard, the part played by the civil servants in Palestine throughout all these years of strife, and the catastrophic losses sustained by them in the King David Hotel outrage last week. These non-combatant civilians, Arabs, British, Jews, Greeks and Armenians, men and women of all ranks, from the higher civil servants to humble cleaners, have been wantonly sacrificed for no offence and no cause. In the face of discouragement, hostile propaganda and violence, they have done their duty, impartially and steadfastly, for the good of the country and of the people they serve, irrespective of politics and communities. They have been an excellent body of people, and it has been my pleasure to examine their work at a distance, and to have seen all the fine work they have done. I know that the House regrets very much that such a number of fine public servants have been sacrificed in the way in which they have been sacrificed.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) raised the question of cooperation between the Government and the Jewish Agency. For a time, the Jewish Agency cooperated with the Government, as the Mandate required, and in certain spheres it has continued to do so, but in other directions it has abused its privileged position, and become the instrument of an extreme nationalism. I well remember receiving a Zionist deputation, led by the Chairman of the Agency, a week or two after I had entered upon my present office.
With no recognition of the rights of the existing non Jews in Palestine or the mandatory obligations of His Majesty's Government towards them, he not only demanded the immediate admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine, but demanded fundamental changes in the constitution, and also asked that there should be an immediate declaration by His Majesty's Government in favour of a Jewish state. Even in all the important spheres of public order, the Agency has in recent months failed in its duty of cooperation with His Majesty's Government. The outrages in Palestine on the


night of 31st October last, which are described in the recently published White Paper, evoked an equivocal condemnation from the Agency, who published a statement containing the following words:
'The Agency repudiate recourse to violence but find its capacity to impose restraint severely tried by a policy which Jews regard as fatal to their future.
Some newspaper reports of speeches made by members of the Jewish Agency, which I feel sure my hon. Friend has seen, are an indication of their attitude towards the work of the administration. My hon. Friend also raised some matters in which he alleged that there had been cooperation between the Palestine administration and the Hagana. I have made inquiries concerning this matter. There was some truth in the fact that the Jewish Agency, after the death of Lord Moyne, made available to the police a number of suspects, of whom about 300 have been traced and arrested, and some small stores of arms were uncovered. Prominent members of the Irgun were included and a few of them were detained. He also referred to the alleged assistance given by the Hagana to the police authorities in Jerusalem concerning the discovery of sites connected with the new rocket weapon for shooting up the King David Hotel. I am informed that no assistance was at that or any other time rendered by the Hagana to the Palestine police and that the police discovered that these weapons were mortars without any assistance either from the Agency or from the Hagana. Even assuming that everything the hon. Gentleman said is correct, I am sure he will agree that it cannot in any way justify the various acts of terrorism, particularly the blowing up of the King David Hotel.
The hon. Member also raised a question with regard to the Palestine police force and said he hoped that it would not become a "Black and Tan" organisation. I feel sure the House, while they will not expect me to deal with the past history of the Palestine police force, will agree when I say there is no danger at all of this police force, which is made up mainly of British men, becoming anything like a "Black and Tan" force.

Captain Delrgy: The "Black and Tans" were British too.

Mr. Hall: Reference was made by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) to the conditions under which the Palestine Police are working. He hoped that all the "plum jobs" would not go to the regular soldiers. The number of appointments to commissioned rank in the police and mobile forces from among officers serving in the Army is about 20. About 30 men serving in the Palestine Police have been promoted to commissioned rank. Promotion to the regular police force is almost wholly from the ranks and, apart from the Inspector-General, the great majority of the senior officers have been promoted from the ranks.
We have come to the conclusion that it will be best, at the outset of the scheme which is before the House, to make no arrangements for the immediate constitutional development at the centre. There is, at present, no common ground between the two communities, and any representative Central Government would consequently be a house divided against itself. The strife, which we trust will soon disappear, would almost inevitably endanger the scheme right from the start, and we are of the opinion that it is very much better that the plan should continue, as it exists, as a basis for discussion. The plan recognises this obligation both to the Arabs and to the Jews in Palestine, and, while admitting the difficulties of reconciling that obligation, it is hoped that, with the growth of common interests and good understanding, and a determination to face these complex issues from the standpoint of the wider interests of the United Nations, it will make a consequent contribution to the foundations of international security, both from the point of view of the Jews and that of the Arabs alike. It holds out the promise of a new and better era, and it is hoped that the influence of world opinion will strengthen those elements, hitherto too little regarded amidst the partisan clamours, which are working in cooperation between all who dwell in Palestine. If that cooperation can be achieved, Palestine will stand as an example of a country, which has overcome those divisions of creed and race which have so often constituted fatal obstacles to successful endeavour.

Mr. Stokes: Will my right hon. Friend answer the question specifically put to him as to what is meant by "to London" in the four telegrams? They cannot just have arrived at the General Post Office. To whom were they addressed?

Mr. Hall: No, I cannot answer that.

Mr. Stokes: Will my right hon. Friend answer it next Session?

Mr. Hall: There can be no doubt at all that the telegrams were sent, and the telegrams were received by certain persons. We cannot say who has received them. That is the difficulty.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will my right hon. Friend make it perfectly clear that the Jewish Agency have declared publicly that none of these telegrams ever reached them?

An Hon. Member: Any of them?

Mr. Silverman: Any of them.

Mr. Hall: It is not suggested here that the Jewish Agency has received them.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Several hon. Members asked whether the suggestion had ever been put forward that the British Government or the United States Government should themselves offer to take some immigrants from Europe. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that suggestion has ever been made?

Mr. Hall: It has been made through the International Refugee Committee which has been set up and is examining the position at the present time, not only in respect of the United States and this country, but also in relation to the Dominions and other countries?

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — ACQUISITION OF LAND

9.10 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): I beg to move,
 That the Acquisition of Land (Increase of Supplement) Order, 1946 (S.R. &amp; O., 1946, No. 1163) dated 22nd July, 1946, made by the Treasury under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, a copy of which Order was presented on 22nd July, be approved.

This is a very simple matter in form and also, I think, a relevantly simple matter in substance. I will endeavour to put it to the House as clearly as I can. The Order to which I am seeking to get the consent of the House relates simply to percentage, which I will explain in a moment. It does not raise wider grounds of war damage law or administration, all this will be open for discussion after the Recess. I do not know how narrowly, Sir, you propose to rule on this Debate. My submission is that this is a very simple and restricted matter, and I would say at once that I am not prepared, tonight, to deal with any larger issues about value payments or war damage administration, though I shall be very happy, if it is the desire of the House, to enter into a discussion on these matters in October. Tonight, I am proposing a change which, I hope, will be of benefit to many, and I will seek to explain it as simply as I can.
Under Section 57 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, it is provided that the prices current on 31st March, 1939, shall be taken as the basis of compensation on the compulsory acquisition of land by a Government department, or by a local or public authority within the meaning of the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919. I think I am getting this right. This provision is in force for five years from the commencement of the Town and Country Planning Act, that is to say, from 17th November, 1944. Section 58 of that Act provides that supplementary—and here I approach the exact topic of the Order—compensation not exceeding 30 per cent. can be paid to an owner-occupier in respect of his interest in a building on the land, and that is* what we are now considering, or any agricultural property.
What we are proposing to do tonight is to lift that 30 per cent. to 60 per cent. as a purely temporary measure, as a partial relief to many persons who have a good claim, which we fully recognise, and for the benefit, in particular, of my hon. Friends who come from towns where there has been much blitz and other damage. This is without prejudice to further and wider consideration of the whole matter next autumn. I am not committing myself for or against any other changes; I am proposing this one particular change, namely, the lifting of the 30 per cent. to 60 per cent. as the basis of supplementary compensation.
I do not know whether the House will want further details of the legal background of the matter, but I will endeavour to give a little more now and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who speaks with such authority and lucidity on so many legal matters, will, I am sure, be pleased to deal with any points which may be raised by subsequent speakers. As I understand the position, only two points really arise on this Order. In the first place, under the main Statute, to which I have referred, it applies to interests in respect of which notices to treat are served during the period specified in the Order. The increased supplement, therefore, only applies when the notice to treat is served on or after 22nd July, 1946, and not later than the expiration of the five-year period which I have already mentioned and for which the 1939 standard runs.
The Order is not retrospective, and it does not apply where notice to treat was served before 22nd July, 1946. We were advised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General that we could not give a retrospective effect to the Order. We would have been willing to consider such a proposal on its merits, but we were advised that it was not legally possible to give retrospective effect to the Order, and we have respected that opinion. In the second place, the question may be asked why the new figure was fixed at 60 per cent. rather than any other percentage. As I have said, we are proposing to lift the 30 per cent. to 60 per cent. There is at present no very precise basis upon which the appropriate figure can be determined. It is difficult to see how far or how fast prices will move in the future; we are anxious to do something now, and we have, therefore, deter-mined 60 per cent. as a rough shot as an immediate act of substantial justice to those concerned. Looking towards the ranks of Plymouth Hoe, including my hon. Friend the Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland) who takes a keen interest, of which I am never left unaware, in this matter, I repeat that this proposal is entirely without prejudice to further proposals that may be made at a later date. Do not let them think that by agreeing to this Order tonight, they are losing any opportunity to approach me and advocate by any proper means, at

which they are very expert, any further advances in the future.
In deciding what the new figure should be, the reason for suggesting 60 per cent. was that in the period since the Act of 1944 was passed, building costs and the values of property have risen rather more than most people expected. When the 1944 Act was discussed in the last Parliament, many hon. Members in different parts of the House took an active part in those discussions. I cannot say that I did, but many of my hon. Friends did, and there was then a rough picture of what was likely to happen to building costs. It is true to say that, on the whole, building costs have risen rather more than was then expected. They have not yet begun to show the fall following the initial rise, which some prophets anticipated. I will not prophecy the future shape of the curve, but we will see how things turn out. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers), who follows these matters so closely, has his own views, and there are some who hope that after this initial rise there will be a peak and that prices will gradually come down as we get what I may call the mass production not only of houses, but of the other elements necessary for building and the repair of damaged buildings. To date, prices have risen rather more than was expected and they have not yet begun to fall, as some people thought they would by now. We, therefore, thought that, as an act of rough approximation, it would not be unreasonable to take a figure of 60 per cent. It seemed to me that it was largely a question for a broad settlement—we have no exact index number by which to measure—at this stage on an arbitrary basis, though seeking to do the right thing, and the Government thought that 60 per cent. was a reasonable percentage to take at this stage in order to do justice to those whose present property was acquired compulsorily and who lose their present interest in occupation.
I would like to add this further point. Part II of the Town and Country Planning Act, to which I have referred, applies to all compulsory acquisitions for public purposes. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the former Minister of Town and Country Planning, who I am glad to see here, sponsored the Bill, and the Act is, therefore, familiar to him. I hope that in due course I shall have


his support of the Order which I am moving. The Act applies to properties which are intact, and to properties which were damaged in the war and would be eligible for cost of works payments if they were not being acquired. It also applies to properties damaged in the war which were eligible for value payments only. We can reveal, I think, after this passage of time, without any prejudice to the Official Secrets Act that the Debate which took place in the House when this measure was going through was not more prolonged, more animated or more intellectual than that which took place in another circle of discussion, before the Bill was finally produced, as the right hon. Gentleman will recall. It is a very difficult matter on which to be fair, and clear-minded. The provision which was embodied in the Act, provided that there should be a supplement for owner-occupiers in the first two sorts of properties mentioned. That is to say, it excluded properties that were eligible for value payments. What we are doing is proposing to increase the maximum from 30 per cent. to 60 per cent. The third class of case, namely, the war damaged property which was not eligible for a cost-of-works payment, is outside the scope of the present Order I want to make that quite clear, because those who may be inclined to take exception to the Order, may not realise that cases which may legitimately be brought forward are not touched by this Order at all.
I wish to add, in order to complete the picture as I see it, that the whole thing is exceedingly difficult; it is one of the most difficult matters which we have to consider in this Parliament. The thing is legally difficult, and it is also very difficult in terms of practical handling. It is difficult for me, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, because there may be an inflationary danger if we let the thing go too far, if we are too generous or too swift in releasing payments. It is, indeed, what some call "the suppression of inflationary potential." It may cease to be suppressed or potential, and none of us would like that. I am anxious, in order to get general agreement on this particular proposal tonight, to reserve until later, the larger questions, which are of great interest to many hon. Members in all parts of the House, in regard to war damage payment whether they be

cost or value payments. Later on we shall be ready to consider further propositions. In view of the representations that have been made, it seemed to the Government that this particular increase would meet them reasonably, and do something to adjust the supplement to the increased cost. I hope I have succeeded in making the case for this Order clear. In the light of the arguments I have adduced and of the assurances I have given, that this is totally without prejudice to larger matters to be considered later, I hope the House will agree to the proposition.

Sir Waldron Smithers: What form will the payment for the land acquired take?

Mr. Dalton: It will be a payment of money, of course.

Sir W. Smithers: Paper money?

Mr. Dalton: It will be a payment of money, in sterling. [An HON. MEMBER: " By cheque."] An hon. Member says it will be done by way of cheque, and I trust that will be so. I think I know what the hon. Gentleman is thinking about. He is wondering what the value of the money will be at that time, as compared with now. Neither he nor I could answer that. We must wait and see.

Sir W. Smithers: What is to stop the Government tearing up the paper when they have acquired the land?

Mrs. Middleton: Have I understood the Chancellor properly, that where there are more progressive local authorities who have already given notice of compulsory purchase orders, and notice to treat, within their reconstruction areas, the people who have notice to treat will be debarred from this additional compensation because of the fact that the present local authority has got on with the job?

Mr. Dalton: I tried to make it clear. The dividing date is 22nd July, and I am afraid we cannot now alter that. It is no good my hon. Friend shaking her head sadly. I have been very kind, and I want to be kind; we all want to be kind to these blitzed areas. Do not let us take it too much in compartments. There were certain parts of the country


which were far more under enemy bombardment than others; they include the great naval dockyards, Plymouth and Portsmouth, and many other towns. [An HON. MEMBER: "London."] London, too; we could all go on adding to the list, but I am talking to a West Country Member. Let us not regard this in watertight compartments. The Government have already given indications— and I repeat them now—that they would desire to go even further in assisting those places which stood up under enemy fire more than the rest of the country. Do not make too much argument on what is a relatively small detail in a large picture. We will consider sympathetically claims from the blitzed areas wherever they may be.

9.26 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor invited my cooperation in commending this Order to the House, and I certainly give him that cooperation on the ground, as he put it, that it will be a partial alleviation of a temporary character to, I hope, a considerable number of people. I cannot carry my praise of it any higher than that, nor did the right hon. Gentleman make greater claims for it himself, but on the whole I am very grateful to the Government for this Order. I took the liberty, when I spoke on the Second Reading of the New Towns Bill, to invite the attention of the Government and of the House to the provision in the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, which renders this Order possible, and I am gratified that some notice has been taken of that and consideration given to it. Indeed, I am heartened by this, and by the properly guarded indications which the right hon. Gentleman gave of further benefits to come for the bombed sites, to ask for more—not in any spirit of ingratitude for what has been given, but in the hope that in this very difficult matter due consideration will be given to what I am now going to say, as it was to what I said on the previous occasion.
The right hon. Gentleman was wise in separating this already difficult question from confusion with war damage payments. Payments under the War Damage Acts, whether they be cost of works or value payments, are in themselves such a tangled subject that to bring

them into this Order now would make the subject almost impossible to comprehend. If we consider it from the point of view of what the Order purports to do, namely, to increase the maximum supplement to owner-occupiers for land that is compulsorily acquired for public purposes, and if we can understand it on that basis, I think we shall have done pretty well at this late stage in the Session. The point about which I should like to remind the House is this. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor and I were Members of the same Government which sponsored the Town and Country Planning Act containing the provision. He has indicated—and I bear him out— that however eloquent the speeches and however violent at times the controversy in this Chamber, there was a faithful mirror of that atmosphere in the inner circles to which he has alluded. It is a very difficult matter, and we were then at the height of a very great war. We had to make some provision for this matter when we did not know how long the war would last, when we did not know, in other words, how long it would be before we could appeal to a stable market, undistorted by temporary wartime conditions, in order to arrive at a just price. I do not for my part condemn the compromise which, in those difficult circumstances, was reached by the Coalition, which, at that time, had much graver matters on its hands than the mere question of land prices. But now, I would remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House, the war is over, and has been over for a year and more; and this very Order we have before us tonight, and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with which he commended it, show how difficult it is to work this system of paying for land compulsorily acquired on anything other than the basis of the Act of 1919, which was the current market value. Difficulties at once obtrude.
We fixed 30 per cent., on the best information we had in 1944, as the supplement. Subsequent events have convinced the Government that this is too small, and they are now doubling it. The whole thing is in a state of perpetual revision, and, as the hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton) pointed out just now, there is, inherently, a hardship in this, due to legal difficulties. I understand that persons who have notice to treat served, on them


at one date will be eligible for one payment, and persons who have notice to treat served on them at another date will have another payment. Clearly, this is an untidy, unsatisfactory method of doing business, and may, indeed, be unjust; and that is a thing for which this House must always be on the look-out.
The difficulty of ever fixing the supplement on 1939 prices must be immense. The right hon. Gentleman himself, with all the resources of Government information at his command, sitting in the centre of the spider's web, was unable to prophesy—and I do not blame him—with any correctness, or any attempt at confidence, the course which prices will take here and there. It will be the common endeavour in all parts of the House to maintain the value of the currency and the savings of the people. We are certain we shall accomplish that. I am sure we shall. But there will be rises in costs here and there, and nobody can tell what they will be; and there may be falls in costs, which we cannot now foresee. All these difficulties of trying to prophesy what would be a proper percentage maximum increase would be avoided by a return to the 1919 Act, which was passed immediately after the first World War, and which set as the standard of value, the price that would be given by a willing buyer to a willing seller in the open market. There is, I know, an idea current in some places that, in this, there is a risk of giving a man too much. I would ask the House to consider for a moment how this process of valuation, applied to compulsory purchases, is bound to make it a quite artificial valuation; because it supposes that the man is a willing seller, when, in fact he is not. Therefore, there is, in fact, not the ordinary method of a commercial transaction, in which one says "How much will you take?" and the other says, "How much will you give?" By this artificial method one has to imagine the figure, and the arbitrator has, in the compulsory transaction, to decide, by reference to surrounding voluntary transactions, what is the current market value. There is bound to be some artificiality; but that artificiality is increased when one has to refer to market prices as they were in 1939. Why, with the relentless march of time, and with every year we go further from 1939, that standard becomes more remote and more

chimerical. I have been into cases of this character, and this is the sort of thing that happens. Someone says in his evidence about the price, "An acre of this land was sold for £50 the other day." Then someone else says, "There were special circumstances surrounding that particular sale." Indeed, there often are. Now, consider how difficult it is just to remember all the special circumstances regarding sales of property in 1939. Who will remember them? Every year we get away from 1939, as I say, the more artificial and unreal becomes the computation of the arbitrator.
There is really more in it than that, because there is the justice of the business. What the right hon. Gentleman is trying to do—and I give him credit for it—is to give the owner occupier who is dispossessed of his property a chance to resettle himself somewhere else, and to give him a sum of money which will be sufficient for him to do that. I do not say that we can always resettle a man in precisely the same circumstances, but at least we can give him a fair chance. At least we can give him a fair price which will enable him to resettle himself in the world as it is, and on that ground I would ask the Government to reconsider this matter. One of the main justifications for the 1939 price was the natural desire to prevent persons enriching themselves at the expense of the community due to fortuitous circumstances connected with the war. That was the profound reason which was in our minds, but in peace it does not hold any longer. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that such is the artificiality of this complicated transaction—projecting oneself back to 1939 and adding percentages—that there is nothing in the money which will be paid.
In setting an arbitrator such an unreal and difficult task, we may get a figure which is completely out of relation with current market prices—it may be too low or too high. If it is based on current market values at the time, we shall give a sense of fairness to the person dispossessed, and have a continuous flexibility and natural relationship between compensation and the circumstances of the moment. There is one further matter. We are promised—and I hope we shall see it—legislation for compensation and betterment. If such is


produced, it will do away with the last remaining possible excuse for maintaining this 1939 value. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider all these matters in the. benevolent way he has indicated. It is very hard to maintain benevolence in a Session like this, which has been crowded with Business, with late sittings and weather like this. In the quietude of the country, or wherever the hon. Gentleman is going to deport himself, I hope he will again think out this matter. I ask him to consider the broad point that all these departures from current market values in peace time cannot be justified, and may be very expensive to the taxpayer. It certainly does not leave that sense of satisfaction to the dispossessed person which should be the interest of every wise administrator in these complicated matters to implant in his breast.

9.39 p.m.

Mrs. Middleton: I should like to revert to the question which I put to the Chancellor earlier. The Chancellor made his announcement of the 60 per cent. supplement in reply to my question on 6th June, and in the period which has elapsed since then, such people as were seemingly due to benefit have necessarily, and quite rightly, been assuming that the 60 per cent. supplement will be theirs. Now they are told that this Order does not operate until 22nd July of this year. That is almost two months after the first announcement was made. I imagine that quite a number of other people would have been concerned under this Order had it been operative from the day when the announcement was made. That will be the case, as I suggested in my question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in those areas where the citizens and the local authorities are most anxious to get on with their work of reconstruction and rebuilding. I would appeal to the Chancellor to see whether something cannot be done, even now, to make this Order operative, at any rate, as from 1st January of this year, in order that the majority of these cases to which I have referred may be eligible for the 60 per cent. supplement.
Since I came to this House, I have visited practically all the blitzed towns and cities of this country. Tonight, while

I speak more especially for my own constituency, I can claim to have met, with my colleagues in the Labour Party, representatives of local authorities and local government officers in all the towns and cities which I have visited. I am sure that unless we can get some greater assurance than the Chancellor has given us tonight that those cases will be taken into consideration, where there is at least an equal claim if not a greater claim for consideration than the class of cases he has mentioned, and unless we can get that assurance before this Debate finishes, the reputation of the Government will have gone down considerably in the blitzed areas by tomorrow evening. May I illustrate a point from my own constituency?

Mr. Speaker: May I ask whether the hon. Lady's constituency comes under the Town and Country Planning Act? This Order deals with that, and with that alone, and not with war damage.

Mrs. Middleton: Yes, Sir. In my constituency we have, at the present time, a compulsory purchase Order operative. In the area covered by that Order there are several classes of property. There is the former householder whose property was blitzed to the ground during the assault on Plymouth. Under this Order that person gets no benefit whatsoever. On the other hand—and it can happen within the same street with identical properties—where those properties have not suffered from the blitz, under this Order, if that property is to be compulsorily acquired, the person who will get the 60 per cent. supplement to compensation—

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that we cannot discuss what is not in this Order. We can only discuss what is in the Order under the Town and Country Planning Act. I am sorry that this is not a case in which we can discuss war damage in blitzed towns.

Mrs. Middleton: I suggest that what I am discussing is covered by this Order. I am discussing property that is standing and which has been, or will be, acquired by the local authority under its reconstruction scheme, and, being so acquired, the owners of which will be entitled, if they are owner-occupiers, and if the house is acquired after 22nd July, to 1939 values plus a supplement of 60 per cent.


The point which I am making is this: In the case which I have given of a house destroyed by the blitz, there is no 60 per cent. supplement. In that case, the owner-occupier simply gets the 1939 value payment. In the same street, in the same reconstruction area, where a house is standing, the owner-occupier will get by way of compensation the 1939 value plus something up to 60 per cent., and that seems to me to constitute a gross inequality which is quite intolerable.
One other point is the question of who is to pay this additional supplement. If I understand the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, and this Order correctly, the responsibility for this additional supplement will rest upon the local authority. I would like to be corrected if I am wrong. The Exchequer bears no part of this additional cost, and the whole extra burden is being thrown on local authorities. While I know that the Chancellor has been generous to local authorities with regard to their reconstruction loans, yet I am certain that a very considerable part of this additional 60 per cent. will, finally, have to be borne by the local authority. I hope I am wrong, but perhaps we may have an assurance on that point.
In conclusion, I should like to say that we must all welcome anything that brings a large measure of justice even to a minority, and for that reason, one cannot oppose the Order. But I do beg the right hon. Gentleman with all the power at my disposal, to consider, when the Recess is over, together with those of us who represent the blitzed areas of this country, the very grave problems that arise as a result of compensation both under the Act, a part of which we are now considering, and also under the War Damage Act, and to do something to secure a greater measure of justice for all those who have suffered through war damage and because of compulsory acquisition.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter(Kingston-upon-Thames): The right hon. Gentleman, in asking acceptance of this Order, said that it amounted to a rough approximation justice in this matter. The speech of the hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton), to which the House has just listened, has, I think, accentuated the impression that there is more roughness than approxima-

tion in the effect of this Order. While I welcome it as far as it goes, as an attempt, however inadequate, to deal with the muddle and, indeed, the gross scandal of compensation, I would, if I may do so, reinforce the plea of the hon. Lady to the effect that it does not go anything like far enough. The position, as amended by this Order, will still rest, fundamentally, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, on the assessment values of 31st March, 1939. It is becoming increasingly impossible for any valuer, however expert or however intelligent, to form a really accurate assessment of those values. It may be that such a valuer, having to transport himself to those blissful days of March, 1939, may have to bear in mind that this country was to be faced with a war, and was to have a Socialist Government. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was bearing either of these grave misfortunes in mind, but it does illustrate the artificiality in August, 1946, of asking any man whether a valuer or not to base any assessment upon the standards of March, 1939.
The Order accepts that wholly fallacious basis, and makes it a 60 per cent. supplement, and not 30 per cent. It only accentuates the unfairness of the present position. May I put this illustration to the House? Let us assume that there are three houses in a row, which are taken over by a local authority, or the Minister of Town and Country Planning under his New Towns scheme. One of those houses is not occupied by the owner. It represents the savings, perhaps the life savings, of the individual who has let it. The second house, occupied by the owner, is taken over on 21st July, 1946, and the third is taken over on 23rd July, 1946. Assuming that the 1939 value of each house was £1,000, the compensation payable for those three houses would be, respectively, £1,000, £1,300, and £1,600. [Interruption.] It may well be that that is too much, but assuming that those houses are of equal value, is it not wholly inconsistent that there should be three different assessments of compensation upon them?
It is logical to take the attitude which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) might take, that no compensation should be paid. That is logical, possibly reasonable, but once you assume compensation—as I think most Members


do-surely it is fundamental that that compensation should be fairly and equitably assessed as between the different owners. Is it really possible to defend an Order under which three houses of identical value can have three different figures assessed for compensation? That is the inevitable result of the attitude of the Chancellor in trying to patch up the now quite unworkable system brought about by the 1944 Act, instead of dealing with the matter as one which calls for fundamental overhaul in the light of circumstances in 1936. It is a very stimulating example of the results of that Socialist planning which, we were told, would have such beneficial results for the country. The only possible fair basis for compensation, once you accept the justification for having any compensation at all, is the market value of the property which is taken over. I put that to the House as not only an elementary consideration of justice, which I think it is, but also from the point of view of making an appeal, particularly to the Minister of Town and Country Planning.
When land is taken over under the provisions of Section 57 of the Act of 1944, in a variety of ways, by town planning schemes, and Private Bill legislation, for instance, it is the experience of the right hon. Gentleman that there is a great deal of opposition on the part of the owners concerned. I am sure that it is, particularly, the experience of Members of the House who have sat on Private Bill Committees that the basis of a great deal of that opposition is the feeling that the property taken over will not be fairly compensated. The right hon. Gentleman will find that under this Order there will be no diminution of that opposition, but that if he were to deal with the matter root and branch, and provide a fair basis of compensation, the opposition would gradually disappear, and time, trouble, and expense would be saved to the Government and everybody else. I hoped that in moving what he called this " rough approximation justice " the right hon. Gentleman would have held out some precise and specific hope that this approximation would not be left where it is. It is manifest to hon. Members on both sides that the present 'position is a crying scandal which does no good to anybody, and which causes a great deal of ill-

feeling. I hope that before the Debate is concluded we shall receive a definite assurance from the Government that, if the House accepts the Order as an interim measure, as a condition of that the Government will undertake to introduce a new Measure for compensation and betterment before the end of the current year.

9.56 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I think the whole House will welcome the proposal which the Chancellor has put before us. More particularly, hon. Members on this side of the House will welcome it. The Chancellor talked rather glibly about the interest of the present Socialist Members of the Government in this matter now and in the Debate which took place in 1944. I remember that Debate very well. The introduction of the 30 per cent, differentiation between owner-occupier and owner-investor came as the result of a sharp conflict which took place on the benches opposite, when we occupied them, and when a group of hon. Members in the Tory Reform Committee made proposals rather contrary to those of the Coalition Government, who were only too anxious to keep the level between owner-investor and owner-occupier where it was.

Mr. Medland: This is the only time I have agreed with the noble Lord.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft) and my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) were particularly prominent on that occasion. We had a fierce battle with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester (Mr. W, S. Morrison) as a result of which this new principle was introduced into English law for the first time, and the differentiation between owner - occupier and owner - investor emerged. Therefore, it is with particular gratification that we on this side see the Chancellor raising it to 60 per cent.
I think the House is entitled to some further elucidation of the reasons behind the Chancellor's statement that the Law Officers have thought it wise to put in the date of 22nd July. It is a curious date. It is not even today's date. Why, as the hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton) asked, should it not be made retrospective to 1st


January of this year? Indeed, I would go even further, and say that it might be made retrospective to the end of the war with Japan, or some other date approximating to that, from which time it may be supposed that certain Orders acquiring land began to be instituted. I cannot see why the Chancellor should not be prepared to make it retrospective to such a date. After all, he will be looking for things to put in the record of the Government when the next Election comes, and it would be very much better for him to be able to say that the Government did this as soon as they got into office, in order that people might benefit, rather than to allow it to be said by hon. Members on this side, as undoubtedly they will say it, that the Government waited a year and did nothing until some obscure date in July, 1946. I hope the Chancellor will think again about this matter. The hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth cited an instance in her constituency—and no doubt there are many other cases—where land has been acquired before now. Why should not the people concerned benefit from this increased amount?
The matter in which the House is fundamentally interested in this connection is war damage. I hope that the 60 per cent. is some indication of the kind of level to which the war damage payments will be raised. I hope that when the Chancellor is framing legislation or proposals for the Autumn, he will take into account both the 60 per cent. figure and the fact that hon. Members have tonight pleaded for this Order to be made retrospective, and that we shall not find in the Autumn, in legislation on war damage, that some date in November or December is fixed.

10.0 p.m.

Mrs. Leah Manning: It gives me particular pleasure to be able to follow the noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) in this Debate and to approve what he has said. It is not often that I can do that but I do approve what he says and I approve this Order although, like the hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton), I should like to see the date changed, which is a very natural desire on all our parts. I was very astonished at some of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester (Mr. W. S. Morrison) and

other hon. Members who have spoken from that side of the House suggesting that the Chancellor should make the current market value the assessment for these compensations. At this date, what valuer of any experience is to decide what is the current market value? In my view, one of the most important things that this Order can do is to stabilise the present position to some extent. The runaway prices which we have had for property during the past two years are due entirely to the great necessity of the nation and the real need for houses, that has forced people to buy houses and property at absurdly inflated prices, far and away beyond 1939 levels plus either 30 per cent. or 60 per cent. Sometimes the difference has been 100 per cent. and sometimes as much as 150 per cent. Does any hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House consider that that is fair or right?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: May I put this position to the hon. Lady? Someone whose house is taken for purposes of a public scheme has to live somewhere else; is it fair that that person should not be able to get similar accommodation on payment of the compensation money for his or her existing house?

Mrs. Manning: But does not the hon. Gentleman agree that if we can have a stabilising influence like this 60 per cent. supplement, prices will eventually tend to evolve about a new stabilised position as the result of this Order? The real reason I rose to welcome this Order was because I see that it is going to ease enormously the passage of the New Towns Bill in which the noble Lord and I and other people in this House are so interested. The. difficulties which have arisen at Stevenage and other places have been mainly due to the fact that the 1939 prices plus 30 per cent. compensation offered to owner-occupiers have created a great deal of bitterness and difficulty. I hope that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith), who is waiting to speak and who is so interested in Stevenage, will agree with me when I say that the 60 per cent. supplement is going to ease the position in all the new towns. Whenever I have spoken of the 30 per cent. supplement in connection with the question of new towns, it has been regarded as totally unsatisfactory, but when I have mentioned 60 per cent. views have


changed entirely. Everyone thinks that reasonably generous and, above all, that it will tend to stabilise prices. I welcome the Chancellor's Order but I hope that wherever he may disport himself during his holiday, and however happily he may return, he will not be in such a mood of extreme benevolence as is suggested by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, which would have a very grave effect upon the taxpayers of this country.

10.3 p.m.

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: One would be either more or less than human if one did not wish to agree with the hon. Lady my political neighbour, the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning). So first may I say that there is one point in which I do find myself able to express unqualified agreement with what she has said? That is that the 30 per cent, supplement which has been offered for owner-occupancy is totally inadequate in present-day conditions and, like her, I welcome anything which improves that position. But there my agreement with her must stop, because I do not think that this doubling of the supplement is either a correct or a courageous approach to this problem. The hon. Lady queried the proposition put forward by my right hon. Friend as to the return to a market value of assessment as prescribed by the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act 1919. The hon. Lady asked how we were to assess market value if we returned to that principle. The answer is very simple. The hon. Lady should look at the Act, and I think at Section 6, which prescribes the test of a willing buyer and a willing seller.

Mrs. Manning: There are no willing buyers in these days. All buyers are unwilling. They are forced to buy, and they buy with the deepest resentment and reluctance.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I have no doubt that what the hon. Lady means is that there are willing buyers, but not at the present inflated prices. Of course, that is so. What is the position to which the hon. Lady's argument takes us? A person who sells his house by way of ordinary private conveyance is enabled to get the enhanced price, based on present market values, for he is a willing seller.

The person whose house is taken over on a Compulsory Purchase Order, under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, is not a willing seller and is put in a much worse position than the ordinary individual. I do not think the hon. Lady can agree that that is a just proposition. If she does, I do not think that Epping will agree with her on that point.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer walked, like Agag, very delicately in this matter. When you walk delicately you can take only very short, halting steps forward. This is a short and halting step; indeed, it may be a retrograde step. It alleviates the immediate hardships to some extent, but it may, by so doing, postpone the radical approach to the problem which is required. I can quite understand that there was some object during the war in anchoring compensation to the 1939 value, because nobody could foresee at the time of the passage of the Act how long the war would last. There was also the special consideration of trying to adjust the values of one part of the country with the values in another. The values in the war-hit areas were unduly depressed while values in the comparatively safe areas were unduly inflated. It was necessary to create an artificial index in order to try to anchor those values to a common standard. That situation has now gone, and values in one part of the country are not inflated as against values in another part of the country. Values are universally inflated. By the proposed Order we are limping haltingly in pursuit of those inflated values. My recollection is that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that building costs are higher today than were contemplated in 1944. They are certainly very high. I would like to remind the House of one or two yardsticks by which we can measure those differences.
Let us look at the limit of financial advance under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. That limit has gone from £800 to £1,500, which assumes practically a double rise in values. Let us compare the prices of a local authority council house. Under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1938, they were £400. The price today is just about £1,200. Those values have trebled. We therefore have the position that all that the Order proposes to do is to give a


supplement of 60 per cent. upon the 1939 values. Quite clearly the rise in prices is somewhere at least between double and three times. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has pointed out, there is a necessity on the part of the people who have been displaced to reaccommodate themselves and if they are to do that—

Mr. Harold Davies: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is the hon. Gentleman in Order in dealing with this involved problem on this Order?

Mr. Speaker: We are dealing with the price of land under the Town and Country Planning Act and an Order which increases the differentiation in price from 30 per cent. to 60 per cent. under that Act. The hon. Member is in Order.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am obliged for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I do not think the matter is particularly involved. Many hon. Members have assumed that it is involved, but I believe that these matters are fundamentally simple. We have a rise in housing costs and prices, and it is not at all met by the rise given under this Order. The question the House must ask itself is this—When does the 1939 standard of values become totally inapplicable? First of all we raise the compensation by 30 per cent. and then by 60 per cent. This is the situation. In theory we are anchored to the 1939 price. We take first one jerk at the anchor and then another jerk. One more jerk and, quite obviously, the anchor will be up and the barque will be on the sea of inflation. The point is quite simple—.When are we going to recognise that that anchorage is unsound and that the anchor is up? When are we going— I will not say, to face the future, because some hon. Gentlemen opposite find that too difficult and complicated an exercise— to face the facts in this matter? When we face the facts in this matter we shall return to the proposition put forward by my right hon. Friend and depart from the 1939 anchorage which we now find is unreal and cannot be held, and return to a market value, which is the only just way of compensating the householder whose property is compulsorily acquired if he is to reaccommodate himself elsewhere.

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Pargiter: It is time we understood where we are and where hon. Members opposite want to go. They have not always shown a very great tenderness for the owner-occupier. In the period of development in the greater London area when owners of land were increasing their prices and increasing the cost to the owner-occupier, there was no tenderness on the part of the Tories for the buyer who was going to be the owner-occupier. The landowner was doing very nicely out of the increased value which he had done nothing to provide. They are extremely keen to get back to that free market when the value of land will be on the up and up, and the tenderness they have always shown to the landowners will reap its just reward to them but its unjust reward to us. If we had some system of taxation or rating of land values, some of us might be more happy to get those increased values and tie some of the hon. Members opposite to those' values and reap the advantages which would accrue to public enterprise, and it is time we made it perfectly clear. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) made his position perfectly clear. He wants a free market in land. He is not concerned about the owner-occupier who wants to place himself in another house—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am sorry if I failed to make myself clear. My main concern was for the owner-occupier who desired to reinstal himself in a similar house. It was for that reason that I suggested to the House that he should be compensated at a rate which would enable him to do so.

Mr. Pargiter: Exactly what the hon. Gentleman referred to was the person who gets nothing and thought it quite inequitable that one person, not an owner-occupier, was tied to 1939 values. I think the hon. Gentleman said that specifically. If there has been a failure in policy it was not to have prevented the speculation that is going on in owner-occupied properties. I think it is a great pity that that has been allowed to go on at all, and it is at least desirable to have some sort of anchor. We have price control working in this country today throughout all necessities. Is there any logical reason, therefore, why it should not apply to land equally with other commodities?


If the law of supply and demand works so inequitably as far as the average member of the community is concerned, it is obviously the duty of the Government to do something to prevent him from being exploited. That has been done by the Government with regard to general commodities to prevent him being exploited to too great an extent.
With regard to this question of land, I hope the Order will be passed as it is, but I would have preferred to have had something which would completely anchor land prices to 1939 because of what this really means from the point of view of the redevelopment of many of our areas at the present time. The price of 1939 plus 60 per cent. is already far too great a burden in many of our areas for the local authorities to contemplate in their re-planning and redevelopment. That may not be a reason for not adopting the 60 per cent. but there is certainly a very good reason why that burden should not be increased so far as the public values are concerned.

10.17 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir Frank Soskice): The discussion this evening has travelled over a wide range. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have addressed themselves to the question of whether the values should be based on 1939 prices or on current prices. They have asked a number of other questions, such as whether the amount for which this Order provides is adequate, and so on, and in asking those questions they have taken into account general considerations relating to compensation for the acquisition of land compulsorily. Now my right hon. Friend in proposing this Order for the approval of the House pointed out and I desire to point out again that the Order is of necessity limited in scope. We are exercising a very limited power given to us by Section 60 of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1944.
I can express no opinion on the general matters that have been raised, but my right hon. Friend made it clear that they were matters which he would consider carefully, and that they would come up for discussion next Session. What we are discussing this evening is simply whether or not the House should approve this Order made under the very limited terms of Section 60 of the Town and Country Plan-

ning Act of 1944. What did that Section enable one to do? Sections 57 and 58 of the Act provide that where interest in land is acquired, the compensation shall be based on 1939 prices, and Section 58 goes on to provide that where you have an owner-occupier and the interest in land acquired consists of a house of which he is in occupation, then you can add 30 per cent. on to the amount of compensation then, and only in that case. When we look at Section 60 we find that where circumstances have supervened since the date of the passing of that Act, namely since November, 1944, which seem to justify an increase of that 30 per cent., then such increase can be made as seems proper. In other words, for the purpose of this particular Order we have to start with the assumption that the 30 per cent. was the correct increase in November, 1944; we have to start with the assumption that the system of assessment of compensation provided for by the 1944 Act is correct and appropriate, and that in November, 1944, proper compensation should have been based on 1939 prices plus the 30 per. cent. increase. All one can ask oneself is, has there been since that date, anything which would justify an increase?
What my right hon. Friend said in proposing the Motion was that, since November, 1944, there has been an increase in prices. It was still hoped that prices would in due course fall, but the increase in prices seemed to justify some limited advance on the figure fixed by Parliament for 1944. There has been an increase in prices; therefore, what we are given power to do, and all we are given power to do, under the terms of Section 60 of the Act, is to bear in mind that new circumstance which has supervened since November, 1944, and ask, Should the 30 per cent. be increased? We must ask, Has anything new happened to justify an increase? The extra 30 per cent., raising the limit to 60 per cent., has been fixed by the Government as representing, approximately and fairly, the increase commensurate with the increase in building prices, materials, labour and prices for the sale of property. That is all we have done, and all we can do. For that reason, I submit, arguments as to the Tightness or wrongness of the principles on which the 1944 Act is based, have no bearing on the question of whether or not this Order should be approved.

Mr. Gammons: May I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman a question? I rather gather from what he has just said, that the Government realise that this Order is only part of a much wider matter. I understood him to say that the Government propose to deal with it in the near future. Did I hear him aright; and will he give any indication of when the Government propose to face the anomalies, not only in this Act but in the War Damage Act?

The Solicitor-General: I do not know whether the hon. Member was in the House when my right hon. Friend intimated his views about the matter. He said that there was a much wider question, but this Order was limited in scope. He said he would give consideration to the wider question, but made it perfectly clear that the wider question was not, in his view, within the scope of this Order. This limited Order is a completely different thing. That is what I was pointing out, when I said that we had a limited power given by Section 60 of the Act. That was to look at what had happened since November, 1944, and ask ourselves. Should we increase the 30 per cent.? That is what we are doing. The hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton) was anxious with regard to the date from which the Order would operate. There, again, our hands are tied. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) has always, in discussions in this House, shown great anxiety, and very proper anxiety, with regard to retrospective Orders. In this case, the Government were advised that the terms of Section 60 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, would not enable the Government to make an Order retrospective in this respect. The Order is dated 22nd July, 1946, and so, willy nilly, the Government have only power under the provisions of Section 60 to make it operative from that moment. That is why it would not operate, in the case of notice to treat, given before 22nd July, 1946.

Mr. Medland: A great injustice.

The Solicitor-General: That may or may not be so, but we are bound by the terms of the Act and if we sought to do something other than what we are doing, it would be ultra vires. Our hands are

tied; it is a question of the plain terms of the Act.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: While agreeing; with what the hon. and learned Gentle-man has said, may I point out that that does not preclude the Government, if they see fit, from untying their hands by introducing legislation?

The Solicitor-General: Legislation is one thing, but the exercise of this limited power under Section 60 is completely different. It is the exercise of that power which we are at present discussing; it is only that power with which we are concerned at the moment.
The hon. Lady was also concerned with what she regarded as the injustice of the differentiation of treatment between a blitzed house and a non-blitzed house, and she said it was unreasonable that an undamaged house could qualify for the 60 per cent. increase, whereas a blitzed house could not qualify in the case of a value payment. All I can say is that there is, in point of fact, power also to increase values in respect of blitzed houses under Section 11 of the War Damage Act, 1943. But we are not, of course, discussing that. We are discussing houses which do not fall within the purview of that Section. That is the answer to the point which she made. Hon. Gentlemen opposite said that the proper principle was to give to a person whose house was acquired at least as much as would enable him to find accommodation elsewhere, and pay the price neccessary to buy a house. There, again, that is something which, whether it would be right or wrong, we have no power to do under this Section. We have to start with the assumption that the scale of compensation fixed in November, 1944, was the correct scale. We can only look and see what has happened since then, and we can only increase that scale in proportion to anything that has supervened since then. Therefore, if all that has intervened since then is the increase since November, 1944, in building costs and the costs of property and so on, we can only increase the scale commensurate with that increase in costs. That is what we have done. That is all we can do under this Section, and it is all that we are purporting to do. Therefore, I ask the House to say that, whatever the rights or wrongs of the general position are, whether or not further steps should be


taken—as to which I say nothing whatever—it would be right that the House should approve this limited Order, giving, as it does, a measure of justice, which at any rate goes some way to meet the case, and which, for that reason, should commend itself to the House.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: I apologise for detaining the House at this late hour on this subject, but it is a matter which affects a great number of poor people who, I believe, are suffering from a real grievance and injustice, and I think it right we should debate the matter fully. It is right also because we have really had no opportunity of debating this subject on previous occasions. I would like, as briefly as I can, to make some comments on the Solicitor-General's answer to the case which has been presented. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it was an exceedingly difficult and complicated matter. We all agree with that, but if it is exceedingly difficult and complicated for us, it is also exceedingly difficult and complicated for the victims of the blitz, who have to fill in the forms, and who do not know whether they are to get their payment, and who do not know what their situation is. It would have been wiser if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have dealt with this whole matter together—

Mr. Speaker: We cannot discuss the whole matter. We must discuss this Order, and nothing else. The question is whether the percentage should be 30 or 60. That is really the whole point, and the Solicitor-General has put it clearly.

Mr. Foot: I would like, with respect, to put this point. The hon. and learned Gentlemen's answer was that we must concentrate on the limited scope of this Order. This matter was originally raised, in an answer given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, owing to representations made from this House—representations to which the Chancellor referred in his speech.

Mr. Speaker: It does not matter whether the Chancellor referred to it or not. All we are concerned with is this Order, which is very limited. I was not here at the time, otherwise, I should have restricted the Debate more tightly on this matter.

Mr. Foot: We are in the unfortunate position that we are not able to discuss some of the things which the Chancellor said. I therefore, turn to the next point, raised by the hon. Lady the Member for Sutton (Mrs. Middleton) The hon. Lady put a specific question to the Government, and we have had no reply to it. I think it is only right that we should have the most definite assurance from the Government that this extra 30 per cent. shall be paid by the Exchequer and not by the local authorities. We have heard many congratulations to the Chancellor this evening on his benevolence and generosity, but it is at the moment, under a strict reading of this Order, benevolence and generosity at somebody else's expense, and at the expense of the local authorities. I hope we shall have a specific statement from the Government that the local authorities will not have to bear the burden of this extra cost. This is relevant, I think, to the remarks made from the front Opposition bench.
The whole argument in 1944 was between those who were concerned with the interests of the local authorities, and those who were concerned with the victims who were going to lose their property. It was a very serious argument, which raised most important issues, and, unhappily, the Act of 1944 was not an Act which dealt with the problem properly. There was an attempt then to define an owner-occupier, but, unhappily, the definition was made so that it did not concentrate on the householder who suffered the real grievance. It went much wider, and, in my view, it would have been very much wiser, and more just to those people who are really suffering a serious and long-standing grievance, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had attempted to deal with the whole problem which affects this type of victim, instead of dealing with one small issue now and the rest later on. I hope we may depend on the statement made by the Chancellor—which was a most important statement—that he would consider the whole question in October; I hope that we may therefore assume that there will be for owner-occupiers, under the War Damage Act, the 60 per cent. payment, or value payment, just as there is this 60 per cent. payment under the Town and Country Planning Act. I ask for that further assurance from the Chancellor.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That the Acquisition of Land (Increase of Supplement) Order, 1946 (S.R. &amp; O., 1946, No. 1163), dated 22nd July, 1946, made by the Treasury under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, a copy of which Order was presented on 22nd July, be approved.

Orders of the Day — ACQUISITION OF LAND (SCOTLAND)

Resolved:
That the Acquisition of Land (Increase of Supplement) (Scotland) Order, 1946 (S.R. &amp; O., 1946, No. 1165), dated 22nd July, 1946, made by the Treasury under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1945, a copy of which Order was presented on 22nd July, be approved."—[Mr. Dalton.]

Orders of the Day — SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Borough of Saffron Walden, a. copy of which Order was presented on 30th July, be approved."—[Mr. Oliver.]

10.34 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: This Order is, clearly, the culmination of a crowded Session. It is most appropriate that, at the end of one of the most heavily-laden Sessions of our time, an Order should come before us relating to the ancient borough of Saffron Walden. I congratulate the Government on bringing it forward so expeditiously. I do not wish to go into the merits of the Order. These are matters which have been decided by local public opinion, and, as such, should be accepted. I rise, as the Member for the borough, to congratulate the Government on the expedition with which they brought this Order before us, and to wish it a speedy passage.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — INDUSTRIES, NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: I wish to raise an issue this evening which is not, maybe, as atomic as that of oatmeal— which took about six hours—so far as Scotland is concerned, but as important to the people of North Staffordshire is the issue of new industry. Because there are other hon. Members from North Staffordshire present at the moment—the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) and the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies)—I mean to cut down my remarks to about ten minutes in order that the Minister may have twelve minutes in which to reply on this question.
Why should we, in the Potteries and the contiguous areas, raise this issue of new industry? It is obvious that in our area industry cannot be left to plan itself without guidance. The Government must realise that, besides maintaining an equitable demand for labour, they must face the problem of the character and location of industry. This must be done. I believe, to avoid the need for labour migrations of such a magnitude as would involve acute social disturbance. Do the Government realise this? We need 3. balanced system of full employment.. something better than just any sort of industry or the finding of any sort of job.
As a Welshman, imported to the Division of Leek, and being able to speak for North Staffordshire, I have seen in my constituency, in Kidsgrove, in the days of the depression, as much distress as I saw in the valleys of South Wales. In fact, at one period we had 90 per cent. of the population unemployed. In another part of my constituency—Biddulph—and in the city of Stoke-on-Trent we had this depression. We have two main industries. There is pottery, in the core of North Staffordshire, which employed 43 per cent. of the workers in 1939. Pottery also includes bricks and tiles, and it meant employment for 70,000 people. There is also coal, in which 15 per cent. of the workers, 25,000 people, are employed. In addition we had some iron and steel manufacture, and ultimately, some aluminium rolling. Superficially, the public outside North Staffordshire—outside this island of industry surrounded by a sea of agriculture—if they did not know it, would assume that we were prosperous, but the pottery industry is such that for genera-


tions it has "cashed in" on cheap female labour. In fact, the average wage in the pottery industry in North Staffordshire, in its entirety, from 1935 to 1938, was 16s. 6d. per adult man lower than the average wage in Nottinghamshire or Leicestershire. We want to know what prospects we shall have in these areas, and it is because of that I have endeavoured to raise, for some weeks past, this issue here.
The type of industry we have in the Potteries employs women labour. In Leek, that queen of the moorlands and the mother of my constituency, the silk and textile industry also has a call on women labour. Now the people of Leek want a type of employment, such as light engineering, which will appeal to men and offer jobs to them as this new development in North Staffordshire unfolds. I have been informed by the Ministry of Supply, as a result of continuous approaches, that in Kidsgrove proper we are to be considered as a Development Area. I think that the Government would be justified in considering the entire area of North Staffordshire a Development Area. The pottery industry is backward: it needs mechanisation, and, in this connection, may I refer to the "Working Party Report on the Pottery Industry"? One of the defects of the Report is that there has been a tendency to cooperation with the pottery manufacturers rather than to a more concrete approach to the problem. I will give one typical example. It is on record that a manufacturer in one town in the district of the Potteries, in the depths of the depression, applied to the headmistress of a girls' school for girls to work in his factory before they had reached the school leaving age of 14. I do not want to see the Government encourage the double wage system, which sets off the wages of the women against the wages of the men. This has been done in North Staffordshire in the past.
May I now give some figures to explain what I have been saying? If one analyses the employment of women in the whole of Britain—and these are women between the ages of 16 and 64—it will be found that, in the years from 1935 to 1938, 39 out of 100 of the insurable women between those ages were in employment. But in North Staffordshire, including my own town of Leek and the towns of Biddulph,

Kidsgrove and Stoke-on-Trent, we were employing 52 out of every 100 insurable women between those ages during those years. Maybe the system of family allowances, which is being introduced in the next few months, may alter this sort of thing.
Finally, I would like to point out a feature of this and similar depressed areas which strikes the casual visitor, namely, the extremely poor living and working conditions. On our derelict land we could house 20,000 people if we could have a proper housing scheme, and what I would appeal to the Government to do, is to cut out overlapping Government Departments in the settling of the housing problem. I have had to run from Ministry to Ministry to get an answer to a question. Where, I want to know, does the power of the Board of Trade begin? And where does it end? Whose is the responsibility for Development Area; whose is the responsibility for the royal ordnance factory at Swinnerton and Radway Green, and other factories in our area? Cannot we have something done under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1944, and under the Act of 1946, in order to have land acquired for development? The Engineer in the town of Leek told me over the telephone this week how difficult it is to get land for a manufacturer wishing to come into the district. The Town Clerk of Biddulph has written to me, and, in his letter, says:
The need in Biddulph is for a Government sponsored factory where persons normally unemployable can be found suitable occupations.
We feel that North Staffordshire has been neglected. We gave the country silk from Leek. We are helping in the export market, gaining dollars for the Government. We feel that more attention should be given by this House to this part of the country, and it is because of that fact that I have raised this matter in a general way. We would like to see the standard of living go up. The average person of this country only spent four shillings and seven pence per year on pottery prior to the war. I know that the general prosperity of the country would give us some prosperity in Stoke-on-Trent. I hope the two hon. Members to whom I referred will be able to raise a point or two. I leave it there, in the hope that we shall have some answer from the hon. Gentleman who is to reply which will give satisfaction to these areas in North Staffordshire.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Mack: I am very happy to be associated with my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) in furthering the interests of industry in North Staffordshire. I have had the pleasure of his support and loyal cooperation on a previous occasion, together with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies), when I visited the Board of Trade in connection with a factory at Newcastle-under-Lyme. The Members for North Staffordshire work as a team; they work together loyally, with a common object, in doing what they can for the furtherance of industry there. I have in my hand a letter written by Mr. Buckley, who is the secretary of a labour council group in the Halmer End-Audley area. This very human letter shows the grave concern which he and his colleagues feel about the state of industry there. He says:
We are very much concerned about obtaining a means of livelihood for the people of our district. By 1939 it was really and truly a distressed area in every sense of the term. During the years of the war it became prosperous. Now that we are in postwar days people are asking the question: Are we going to drift back again to those dreadful prewar days?
In that connection I have, on previous occasions, made several approaches to the Board of Trade. I have a letter written by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in which he reminds me that on 18th January I wrote him enclosing a letter from the urban district council of Kidsgrove, part of which is in my constituency. On 31st January I asked if he would see a deputation of the Kidsgrove Council, together with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leek and myself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was not able to see his way to grant that request. As a matter of fact, he refused to see that deputation.
On nth February I asked a Question in the House about the stimulation and introduction of new industries into the Audley and Kidgrove districts. My right hon. Friend said there was no doubt that industry in the district of which Audley and Kidsgrove forms a part was in urgent need of modernisation and diversification in order to provide employment for the workers. Up to now all I understand we have had offered has been something in

the nature of a pottery industry. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leek so rightly stressed, we want, if possible, light engineering works. We have a very fine class of worker in the district, diligent, hard working and very sincere, who has suffered tremendous unemployment. In my constituency there are villages like Halmer End, Audley, Talke, and Talke Pits, with a total population of about 10,000 people, who look with grave concern and apprehension at what might well happen in the next few years if this rot sets in. The President of the Board of Trade said they would do all they could to draw the attention of industrialists seeking new factory accommodation to the facilities available in the district, and help in securing licences for the establishing and erecting of factories. He points out that his Department cannot direct industry but only persuade it; and also adds that the claims of Kidsgrove for industrial projects are not being overlooked. Apart from the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend referred us to the regional controller, who has only got limited powers, it appears that nothing has actually been done. I fully recognise the many calls and claims upon the Board of Trade, and I know it is not possible to erect factories by magic in all parts of the country. However, I do appeal to the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to do all he can to give very special consideration to the most urgent needs of this part of the country.
It may be argued that we are each speaking for our own constituency. That, of course, is the right and proper thing to do. I think there is a special claim in the North Staffordshire area. I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem will have something to say about his constituency, which is, in many respects, similar to my own. Finally, I do make an appeal to my hon. Friend not just merely to regard this as a Departmental matter, because we will go to him again. I believe that we must press this case if we are to get some consideration, and I trust, therefore, that this discussion will at least have brought to his notice more forcibly than correspondence can the needs and requirements of our areas.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: In the few minutes remaining to me, because we wish to give adequate time to the


Secretary for Overseas Trade to reply, I should like to underline the urgency of the matter we are discussing this evening. With the assistance of the Ministry of Labour, I have been taking out some figures relating to the unemployment position in North Staffordshire, and I find that at the period ending 17th June, 1946, there were some 4,552 men unemployed and 1,080 women, making a total of 6,632. The workers are spread over a variety of industries. Time does not permit an exhaustive examination of these figures, but in support of my appeal that some urgent attention be given to this matter I should say that, following up the figures the Minister gave to me when I asked for details of the unemployed in North Staffordshire for six months or more, the Minister of Labour informed me that on 17th June, 1946, there were 1,156 unemployed insured men and 284 unemployed women of over 18 years suitable for ordinary employment who had been unemployed for six months or more. I think, without going any further into the details of the nature of the industries concerned, those figures are sufficient to emphasise the urgent appeal we are making tonight.
Week by week we go back to our constituencies and we meet these decent, hard-working citizens, who keep asking us what the Labour Government are doing for them. The position could be fully explained to the House if there were time. It is a legacy of the turnover from wartime production to peacetime production, and in this connection it is interesting to notice that, of the figures of unemployed which I have quoted, some 1,125 men and women are connected with the engineering industry. So my hon. Friends tonight are quite right when they ask that light industries should have special attention, because during the war there have been training facilities for a great many men and women, and here we have semi-skilled and fully trained people, who could do much of the work which was previously done, but is no longer done, in Birmingham and the Midlands because of the shortage of manpower.
I do not wish to occupy the time of the House any longer, because we are most anxious to have as long a reply as possible from the Secretary for Overseas Trade, but the brief case that we are

submitting is that the North Staffordshire area has had to depend on one or two major industries in the past. We are asking for a greater diversity of industry. We have the personnel trained, ready and waiting, but at the moment it is going to seed. It is an urgent matter, and we would have wished that the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Labour had been present to hear our case, as well as the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply. This is a matter in which there should be coordination of policy, as my hon. Friends have already indicated. I would wish that every expedition should be given to the establishment of training facilities, and to the introduction of new industries; and that some ready decision should be made in respect of those huge wartime factories which employed some 20,000 to 30,000 of our people in the war years. I will leave the matter there, and hope that, as a result of our raising the topic, we may have some early attention given to what is becoming a very urgent matter in North Staffordshire.

10.56 p.m.

Mr. Marquand(Secretary for Overseas Trade): With a great deal of what the three hon. Members who have spoken have said, I, of course, entirely agree. The Government, like them, believe it is not sufficient to maintain the general level of employment throughout the country, but that this should be followed by obtaining a due balance of industry in every locality. I can assure the hon. Members who have spoken, and everyone in the Potteries district, that the Government wish to diversify the industrial structure of the area. We place the Potteries high on our list of areas which need attention in this respect. At the same time, I would like to suggest that the position may not, perhaps, be quite so bad as the hon. Members in their enthusiam—a natural and praiseworthy enthusiasm—for the well-being of the people whom they know so well, are inclined to depict it as being. Between the two wars, the average of unemployment in the Potteries district as a whole, I understand, was 21 per cent., or 33,000 persons; whereas today there are, as the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies) correctly says, round about 6,000 unemployed, which represents 4 per cent. of the insured population.
The whole area was heavily engaged during the war on munitions production,


with the aid of labour provided by the concentration of the pottery and other industries in the district, and by the importation of labour. Now, naturally, the area is confronted by a very considerable problem of reconversion and readjustment. That applies particularly to the chief industry of the area—the pottery industry—where employment is still very much less than it was before the war. I recognise, of course, that before the war there was much short-time employment in the Potteries. I will not enter into the discussion which the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) mentioned briefly about wage levels in that industry. That does not specially concern the Board of Trade in any case, but that there was short-time employment in the industry, I have no doubt. Nevertheless, the total employment at present is very much less than it was before the war, and I should not have thought that the expansion of the labour force of that industry had reached its limit. It is now employing more than 30,000 people, and I am glad to say that between the middle of 1944 and the middle of 1945 employment increased by 4,000. There is much modernisation of the equipment of the industry going on, and there is a great deal of extension of existing factories, and even the building of. new factories in the industry. The ceramic section of the industry is very short of labour, and wishes to get more. It is a section of the industry which is due to develop with the many other developments going on in British industry at present. The consequence of this is, that at Stoke itself, I am told that at the last time for which figures were available, only 155 women were out of work. Admittedly there are much larger numbers of men out of work and the unemployment of men is a serious factor in the situation in the Potteries.
Three of the wartime Government factories in the area have been allocated or civilian production—factories formerly occupied by Rolls Royce at Newcastle-under-Lyme, by Rootes Securities at Stoke-on-Trent, and by British Thomson Houston at Newcastle-under-Lyme have been allocated to Rist's Wires & Cables, to the Simplex Electric Company, and to he British Thomson Houston Company or a different form of production. I am eliably informed that these firms estimate their potential employment at 5, 000; they are at present employing

about 700 between them and they expect, if all goes well, to reach an employment level of 5,000, which goes a very long way to equal the present total unemployment in the area. I do not wish to suggest for one moment that these factories alone are sufficient to absorb all the unemployment in every part of the pottery district, but I do suggest that the employment they will give will be a substantial contribution to the welfare of the district and to its industrial diversification.

Mr. Mack: May I ask what particular attention my hon. Friend is paying to the more isolated areas?

Mr. Marquand: It is rather difficult in the very short time at my disposal to set the whole thing in its correct background and also to pay attention to particular districts, but here let me say just one word about the impression which hon. Members seem to have that the Government Departments are not properly coordinated in their plans for this type of district which needs diversification. Occasionally there may be conflicting information given by an official of one Department or another which does not exactly coincide with what may have been said by some other official. If it be true that some representative of the Ministry of Supply said that it was intended to make Kidsgrove a development area, he was speaking without the book, because the making of a development area would be the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Harold Davies: That is exactly the kind of thing I mean.

Mr. Marquand: There may be, here and there, remarks made by subordinate officials which are not perfectly true, but to draw from that the conclusion that there is no coordination between Government Departments would, I think, be a mistake. There is in every area a regional board on which the chief officials of all the Government Departments concerned in this kind of thing are represented, and I would suggest very seriously to my hon. Friends and to trades union leaders and others interested in these industrial problems that they should take them up with the regional boards, when they will receive authoritative pronouncements on which they can rely from senior


officials of the Departments who are in touch with Government policy.
I would like now to refer to one or two of the districts particularly mentioned. Kidsgrove is one where we recognise that a serious problem exists. It is an area largely dependent upon coalmining, and the unemployment today, I am told, consists of some 319 men and 96 women, representing five per cent. of the total insured population. In that area there was placed during the war the great royal ordnance factory of Radway Green. My right hon. Friend is in consultation with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply as to the possibility of giving more employment in the Radway Green royal ordnance factory. It is at present engaged on work for the Ministry of Supply but it might be used a little more extensively on some of this civilian work which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply is undertaking on behalf of the Ministry of Works, and I should like to assure my hon. Friends that we are in close touch with the Ministry of Supply on this particular matter.
Reference was made to Audley, a district, which, I understand—though I must

confess that I do not know the area in detail from personal knowledge—is very close to Newcastle-under-Lyme. I understand that during the war the factories placed in Newcastle-under-Lyme drew much of their labour from Audley. There are at present 151 men and 161 women unemployed in that area, but we hope that the two large factories allocated to Newcastle-under-Lyme to make fractional horsepower motors and commercial cables, and which are planning to employ between them some 4,000 people, will, as soon as they are built, solve this problem of reconversion and rehabilitation and be able to provide a satisfactory employment which will mop up unemployment in Audley.

It being Half an Hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question, put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified for this Session by the Order made upon 16th August.

Adjourned accordingly at Four Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.